Kris Me: Blog

Hi readers, Well, since it's The Australian Day public holiday (Monday the 27th in Oz) and my Birthday, I'd thought I'd get the first six chapters of Crossroads posted. The rest will come as fast as my editor gets the chapters done, so don't be surprised if it is a week before the next instalment. When we get to chapter 34, it's all done.

Hi Mixerman, Bushfires in Australia are not rare. Like floods, droughts and cyclones they happen every year, somewhere in Oz.

Way back when the first settlers came to Australia they learnt that the Aboriginals would do controlled burns most years. The burns were done to make sure uncontrolled fires didn't burn where they didn't want then too. Also, some of our native plants need fires to propagate.

Uncontrolled fires are the worst because eucalyptus trees burn hot and dry spinifex burns fast. As people move out of the major city centres they tend to go for the "live in the bush" approach. However, they don't cut down the trees near their houses or create adequate firebreaks or do regular burns or mow the paddocks at the right time of the year to reduce the fuel.

Also, many Councils don't spend the money to maintain adequate backburning programmes. They have idiots that put laws in place so property owners can't backburn and cut down trees, and then they rely heavily on the volunteer rural fire-fighters, so they don't have to employ the firemen they truly need.

So when someone deliberately or accidentally lights a fire when we are experiencing hot dry weather, as we do at this time of year, every year, the fires getaway. Fires don't discriminate between settled areas, peoples homes or business and national forests.

Even worse, people have this dumb idea that their house and possessions are more precious than their lives and they stay to fight the fire even when told to evacuate.

Unless you have your own power source and plenty of water like a dam and water tanks, have installed a sprinkler system on your roof, back burnt and created fire breaks, when the wind blows the fire your way you are buggered. It will burn you out faster than your garden hose can spray water.

Bush fires can move at incredible speeds and trust me from experience, they are freaking hot and bloody scary. They can burn so hot that the tar on the road melt and so do your tires. Fighting bushfires with wet hessian-bags and water-filled backpacks are not fond memories from my youth.

The fire will look like it is headed in one direction and then the wind swings and woosh it drives off in another. If the winds are high, the embers will also happily blow over fire breaks and start a new fire exactly where you don't want it to burn. Watching a fire dance from one treetop to another faster than you can run is mind-blowing.

The smoke is the next biggest killer. You can't see and you can't breathe. Smoke can also travel for tens of kilometres. So even if the fire is sixty kilometres away, the smoke from a big fire can still blanket a city just like the smoke from fires on the Gold Coast before Christmas caused havoc in Brisbane.

One of the reasons you hear about the deaths of native animals is because of fencing, human development and the speed of the fire stopping their escape. Also, it makes the news more sensational if they report on skippy having burnt ears and feet.

I feel sad every time I hear of people dying because they stayed too long. They may have even saved their homes but they forget they need to breathe too. More often than not they don't save anything.

My condolences to the Lang family on Kangaroo Island, SA for the loss of your loved ones. And to the families that that still have people missing in the areas that are burning.

Many it rain.

Hi readers, I was playing with my stats and realised I could release Opal Hollow to the general public, so I did. It won 3rd place in the 2017 Halloween comp. If you follow the link to the sight for the competition, my story will appear in second place since G Younger currently has his book 'The Chosen' removed from Sol.

Greetings and salutations my fellow readers and writers,

I hope you are all having a productive holiday - slaving over a capricious keyboard in a hot room, or you are like me and kicking back and taking easy. *grin*

For those still with their nose to the grindstone, remember not to drink and drive. For the rest of you, only party hard if you don't want to remember what you did and with whom, in the morning.

Hi readers, Just so you know, I've been doing some editing of Delta.

You will notice that what 'Week' it is, is missing from the chapter title if I've edited that book. So far I've done the first three. Fourth to be posted in the next couple of days.

I can't guarantee the books are error-free but they should be better. I've been fixing some timeline issues and inconsistencies.