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| An Extreme
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October 21 & 27, 2004.
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| Illawarra Escarpment
Project Page 8. |
| Published: November 2004. |
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What a difference a week makes. It was Thursday
October 21 and the heaviest rain on the escarpment for many years
had broke records. It had also produced some waterfalls of a scale,
at locations where any water is rarely seen.
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Just less than a week later on Wednesday October
27 and only a couple of kilometres from the above waterfall, a
bushfire.
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Starting somewhere in the
middle of a 500 to 600 metre strip of grassland between the
F6 freeway and the old Princes Highway, the main objective was
to get the fire out before it could jump the highway and run
down the face of the escarpment.
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On the back of a heatwave, a front had hit
the coast after lunch with gale force winds that blacked out much
of the Illawarra that night from fallen trees and damaged power
lines.
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Fortunately, volunteers from the NSW Rural
Fire Service achieved their goal. The location was also not far
from where many of the pictures on the previous couple of pages
were taken.
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A fire unit from Darkes Forest arrives to
lend a hand to those from Bulli, Stanwell Park and another unit
located on the other side of the fire.
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Without the heavy rain of the previous week,
this fire with its mix of conditions may had been far worse. But
despite the rain, there has been a long drought and there are
still water restrictions in force.
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At least that bit of heavy rain has taken
the edge off what seemed to be building up as a potentially dangerous
bushfire season for the Illawarra Escarpment.
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Peter Andrews © 2004.
All Rights Reserved.
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