Fire protection

One word of caution regarding petrol driven fire pumps.
research and experience has shown that petrol driven pumps/generators fail due to the fuel evaporating within the fuel system at lower temperatures than diesel driven pumps and generators.
Recent experience here in AUS has shown that both types of drive stop when the fire consumes all or most of the of the available oxygen.  This happens /can happen quite early in the fires arrival in wind driven bush fires.  Obviously there are lost of deciding factors, but this is one point very commonly ignored.
Fire pumps should not be out in the open and must be protected from radiant heat as effectively as is possible where bush fire threat exists.

I'm no expert, but these points have been raised in a peer reviewed paper where protecting a defense asset was studied in depth. 

Good luck Rob, moving the LAVs is the sensible thing to do IMHO.
 
In the 1968 fires in the Blue Mountains, my Mum and we 3 kids went to relos the day before IT hit and my Dad stayed. The night before the local Fireys back burned the gully behind my house if they hadn't done that nothing would have stood. Even so, there was hundreds of houses burned. My Mum went back the next day to find the garden hose layed out with the last 20 ft burned off and no Dad about. No mobile phones back then and they had passed one another heading though. That scared her good, as she had driven up Old Bathurst Rd with still burning trees about. Protecting the fire fighting gear is important. Big fires make there own weather systems. I will never forget the smoke cloud that fire made or the colour of the sky. It was much bigger than the one that had us suck at my Sisters at Coaldale one Christmas for a week, that had Wollengong cut off both road and rail. They say it every year, it will be bad, but this year feels different. Got a story about Trail riding through a fire at Bulladela, that was interesting. We had zero idea it was there till we were riding single track right through it. There was a predicted southerly wind change that day and it took me some effort to convince the blokes to get us riding not were this fire would go. It would not have been fun in the predicted 60 to 80k winds. The now-retired Bushfire Commissioner lives in Springwood and I used to hear him say how one day those Mountains will burn again like 68 with 10s of thousands more people up there, that scared him as well. Limited escape roads up there.
 
Heard a story about the fires that hit Gippsland in the twenties or thirties, the fires went through the timber-getter's camps without loss of life, most of the blokes were WW1 veterans and knew the value of a good slit trench.
 
Here in northern California we are in to preventative power cuts by the utility to reduce the risk of a repeat of the bad fires we had two years ago. Very dry everywhere and every now and then the winds get up which freaks everyone out.

I now have a petrol driven pump that I can use to draw water out of the pool to wet the house etc - tested regularly of course. Not that I expect it to save the house on its own, but it gives me peace of mind , and should buy some time until the fire services arrive.

One positive is that the main road we live on provides access and egress to a whole community that the services make sure is cleared and kept safe.

I went for a glorious long ride on the 750SF on the weekend ( Lake Berryessa, Calistoga and back to Sonoma for those who know the area ) and we had quite a bit of rain on the way back so hopefully more on the way.
 
could see the glow of the flames last night-bout 7-8 kay away
 

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I am heading to Sydney on Friday and thats when its going to be on, high 30c and big winds forecast. Not good Paul.
 
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