We had an interesting Sunday night last weekend.

Internet connection has been up and (mostly) down all week. So, I finally get to relate this on Friday!

We had a huge heath fire down here on Sunday, and if it wasn’t for the skill of the firemen and a bit of luck with the wind, a lot of houses (possibly including ours) would have been toast. We were lucky in our cul-de-sac in the end – the fire was brought under control about 15 metres (15 or so yards) from the fence at the end of the road, which is I guess about 100 feet from our house. The next road down from us got it worse – their fences were scorched; the fire reached the edge of their properties.

100 or so people evacuated – we were probably the last ones left in our little cul-de-sac. Had the car loaded up with kids, cat, fish and insurance documents and were ready to go when the fire was brought under control.

Pictures here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4823640.stm

Buzz, if you remember back to when you were here, if you look at from the front of our house to the end of the road, that’s where I’m talking about. It’s all burnt out over that fence now. Picture 5 on that series above was taken from basically outside our house, it shows what I mean. In fact if you’re eagle-eyed, you can see Sarah in the picture. That was taken after the firemen had started to get it under control – half an hour before that, the flames were huge and sweeping down that hill towards us.

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Greg

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2 thoughts on “We had an interesting Sunday night last weekend.”

  1. Wow. I remember thinking while I was there “So that’s what heath is. That stuff looks ripe for a brushfire.”

    I’m so glad you all are safe. I bet that was terrifying.

  2. Yeah, it’s a hazard of living here, no doubt. The wonderful English weather usually keeps the danger in check though ( tough to spark up when it’s raining! ) but this winter has been one of the driest on record, so it’s been likely. This was the biggest one for about 10 years. We normally get 2 or 3 smallish fires on the heath every summer, as a result of kids messing around.

    Chloe was petrified, poor thing. We had to wake them as we’d put them to bed already and they were half asleep when they looked out of the window and saw the big wall of flame on the hill.

    Apparently a man’s been arrested and bailed in connection with it. The last big one 10 years ago was not a kid, but a 40 year old nutter with a fire fetish. Possibly the same this time, we’ll find out I guess.

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