They're doing a hazard reduction burn on 23 Hectares of bush today - which is excellent because that will help prevent a dangerous bushfire later in the summer - but the wind is coming from the WNW, so those of us who are downwind of it are coughing our lungs out.
Can confirm first-hand that it's really big now. I hope they have air assets available this early in the season 😬
Note: It won't get to us because there's are a lot of built-up area in between. The smoke's very bad, but.
Interesting. The smoke from the fire is the only thing showing up on the weather radar.
Fortunately, they appear to have their Hueys available, but they typically send the bigger helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft over to North America to help there while we're in winter, so I don't know if they're back yet 🤞
The fire as seen from Long Reef/Dee Why Beach
Photo credit: Andrew Quilty
This, here, is the thing that worries me about it.
If we want to have green areas in the city, a few houses are gonna be threatened by fires every now and then.
But they've been building a bunch of these retirement villages up that way for a couple of decades now, and this fire is heading in their direction.
They say they have the fire under control today, but it's still really smoky around here, and I can hear the helicopters constantly.
I was struck by this pic in The Guardian taken yesterday from south of Sydney Harbour that shows the scale of the thing:
Credit: Farid Farid/AAP
@DyDave 😩