Fighting Fires

Well, we FINALLY had a fire on Monday morning, after spending a while attending MVA's and repairing roofs, we finally had a fire. The hot stuff.

So, at 0230 after getting up and getting out of my PJ's and into a tee shirt and shorts, I go to the Ute thinking "YAY... Fire...” only to discover that the *jolly* windscreen had frozen up and two buckets of water later it still wasn't clear...

So, with the scene being on route to the station (yeah - it's a big one... car fire) I turn up to the fire station, just in time to watch them drive out the door without me :-( Three of us eventually drove one of our cars to the scene to help out... And by the time it was all over and we were packed up, it was 0330, and time for me to head home to wake up Rach (Beans barked when I came up the driveway) and bug her with the story...

Oh, and now I put a tarp on the windscreen...

Anyway, so the storm.

I was working late at work when Rach rang to say she had a message that the roof had blown off her folks conservatory. So I drove over to their place (one hour from Newmarket to Glenfield!!!), tied some rope around the bits that were left along with some bits of wood, stole some of their takeaways and headed for home.

Get home and had a not-so-romantic candle lit dinner with rach, who says, "I reckon you'll get another call out tonight". "Good thinking - another??" I say as I get up to change out of my work gear and into something more casual. My pager had gone off earlier "MVA ambulance assist". I couldn't make it as I was at the in-laws, however it turned out to be some poor bugger had been blown off his motorbike travelling at 100kph on the open road...

Anyway, we pretty much finished dinner, was checking the emails (using Laptop without power supply) and beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP, off goes the pager...

Anyway, the first place we went to we had to cut a tree that had fallen over the road to get to the house. It turns out I’m rather apt with a chainsaw... It was a two storey house with only half the roofing on one side still on the house, the other half being somewhere in the paddock/neighbours place...

So, we get up on the roof in the gale force winds (although I understand that they were much stronger than the winds during Cyclone Bola in 1988 apparently), and climbing around on a roof holding a tarp lets you know that your ticker is still beating... Anyway, this guy turns out to have a fulltime fireman, a truckie and a builder for neighbours, who don't turn up until they see the flashing red lights coming past their place... good on ya buddy.

So, we were leaving the first place when the next comes through on the pager - "Husband on roof needs help". No kidding... what mad bugger would be on a roof in this weather - oh wait...
Anyway, after using some ropes to hold the roof onto the house, there was nothing more we could do for that guy... As we were leaving the second place, another call comes through... "Trees down on road with Power Lines".

So, we turn up and discover that not only is a tree down with power lines (it's not the 'in' thing at the mo...), but the tree brought the lines down with it when it fell across the road, and some people were having to spend a night in their cars... Until the power board can confirm that there is no power to the lines, we're not going near them, so we cone off the road and go back to the station. Arh, peace. No beeps. Time check, 0230.... "Let's meet here at 0800 tomorrow and go and cut that tree". Cool, no worries, count me in.

So, next morning, I get more practice with the chainsaw - we cut up the tree and let the people at the top of the road go to work, and the people at the bottom of the road get home... And of course, we're packing up from that job, and a call comes through - "Chimney through roof".

Not only was it a chimney, but it turns out to be a brick chimney, and the roof don't look so good anymore... "Weegee - grab the ladder” yay, on the roof again... Tarp, rope... look down to the Chief and he's standing there with a coffee and eating breakfast - WHAT??? Don’t forget me!!! So the three of us on the roof get the job done, and get all packed up to get our cold bacon butties. I didn't mind that my water was cold, but the others didn't appreciate their coffee being cold... the Chief remarks "Gee, it was hot when I had mine". Yeah, thanks for that...

So, we're leaving that place, pager goes off "Tree down across road". Turns out to be about 500m away, so off we trundle... turns out not to be just a tree, but a very mature and very very large Macrocarpa, blocking not only the road, but a good chunk of airspace as well... "Hmm, that's a bit big boss"... yup - nothing we can do here. We'd better go and get some diesel.

Filling up with diesel and "roof missing from house". Turns out to be a little old lady with several sheets of iron missing from the roof, but she was at home by herself all night "and didn't want to be a fuss" - yeah well, we had some plonker who couldn't even call his neighbours, yet this little old lady is carrying 40L bags of compost around to use as weights on the tarp and didn't want to be a fuss...

So, anyway, 9 calls in total, I attended 8. Not all have been mentioned here, as the ones after the little old lady were things like 'trees down' and turns out they could do it themselves so we left them to it...

I got home at about 1430hrs on weds afternoon, and went and repaired the wall on the chook shed that had blown in. Rach had done a marvellous job cutting a tree of the fence, so I got the Landy out, tied a rope around the tree and pulled it away from the fence and up to the house where it is closer to the power so I can use the chainsaw to carve it up (which i STILL need to do)... Time: 1600.

Then, had a quick bite to eat, a shower and in to bed. Rach woke me up at 1930 for dinner, and I stayed up until about 2130, before the alarm went off at 0630 the next morning to go to work... yay.