Feel the burn

Not what you would expect to see on the Bonsai Mountain.

But some dickhead had set fire to it for the 3rd time this month (april)

and due to the dry wind blowing our way the fire soon travelled the half mile to our boundary 

hence the need for 7 fire engines and millions of gallons of water.

At one stage it looked pretty bleak

with 6 firehoses around the house soaking their full range of 23 metres from the boundary in the hope of stopping the advance, talk of evacuating us and the critters were held 

especially as things were getting out of control 

and you could feel the heat when stood in our yard.

Thankfully their efforts prevailed and 9 hours later the fire died out

leaving us to go and survey the damage the following day

armed with bottles of water 

we hunted down the hotspots

and doused them. Thirsty work!

This is another view at its peak heading our way.

Sunday we were out again and hot spots flared up bigger than our water bottles could cope with, the brigade turned out 3 more times and when it got dark a line of flame still burned but the forcast was torrential rain so things were not too bad. 

The kids were brilliant going up and down with water to quench the flames.

There was a lot of ground to cover too.

and the K9s had to avoid burning their paws as the ground was very hot in places. 

Not everything survived. Thousands of birds must have been nesting in the bushes.

Ever watchful :) patrols will be a bit different now half of the mountain is fire damaged.