Shropshire couple in Australian fire peril

Shropshire journalist Megan Norris emigrated to Australia in the 1980s with husband Steven and their young sons, Alex and Peter. The couple, who grew up in Shrewsbury and also lived in Baschurch, fled their home on the outskirts of Melbourne this week as the devastating bush fires crept ever closer. As she waits to see whether her home will survive the latest wall of fire, she tells of the hell that people in the Dandedong mountains are enduring

Our town Kalorama was named by the Aboriginals and means "beautiful place" or beautiful view. Our only view today, which is normally one of rolling forested hills and Silvan Dam and the Tulip fields, is blanketed in smoke as it has been since Black Saturday.

A drove of cars continues off our mountain top to lowlands away from potential danger, and the radio alerts warn those with plans to leave early - to do just that. You can't leave once you see flames. It's too late - then you will die in your car or on the road, of radiant heat as so many in the nearby Kinglake and Marysville Fires already did two weeks ago.

If we stay we are told we must remain in the house and wait for any firewall to pass before venturing outside, or radiant heat will kill us.

I was advised that the gully outside my home would be my best chance of survival. That I was to jump down into it, lie in the mud and cover myself with a woollen blanket. I must stay there after the fire passes - if I get out too soon then I the heat will melt my lungs.

We must not try to flee at the last minute in cars, or we will die. Those who are in cars must have woollen blankets on the back seat and cover up. Lie low in the car and wait for heat to pass. Those who panic and jump from cars will certainly become the next casualties.

I am not courageous enough, or knowledgeable enough about fire to want to stay and defend our house as some of our Aussie neighbours intend. But I worry for them.

I have photographed my house that I love, with its quirky timber deck and verandahs all around. But I can rebuild a burned out house. I couldn't replace my family. And they are safely out of here tonight.

All I can see tonight are little possums ferreting in my trees looking for snacks and enjoying the quiet of dusk. Our dog is safely in the kennels, our cat at a friends. And we will soon join her.

We have been told tomorrow, with its northerly gusting winds and extreme temperatures poses the worst threat of all with fires already burning on our doorstep.

Tonight, our community met on the oval down at Kalorama Reserve a sort of giant cricket pitch surrounded by pine trees and there was an anxiety, and anticipation I haven't known in 19 years here. Some are prepared, more are afraid. All are bracing themselves for trouble of some sort.

Ironically, while our fellow Aussies in Queensland have declared a national disaster zone in the last week due to massive flooding from tropical storms, we remain in drought. With fires, more to come, and now lightening storms, all we need are a plague of locusts and we'll have felt the entire force that mother nature might want to inflict on us.

The State Government has announced the closure of all primary schools, kinders (nurseries) and child care centres in anticipation for what they're saying will be horrendous extreme temperatures and winds.

They have just drafted in 150 federal police to support our exhausted local cops who have been working around the clock directing traffic and operations in the areas where new fires continue to break out and old ones from two weeks ago rage.

We now have seven fires covering massive hectarage. The nearest of 750,000 hectares, and the one over our shoulder which is 300 hectares and growing with the wind.

Both have jumped the containment lines today and threaten problems for tomorrow as wind blows embers all across the surrounding bushland towards our homes. Joining our extra overseas fire fighters from the US and New Zealand, we have many more tonight from Tasmania from New South Wales and from Canada. They are being briefed about our terrain and the nature of our spreading fires.

We can only wait and see what the coming 24 hours will bring.

* Megan Norris is a former reporter in the Shrewsbury office of the Shropshire Star. She is now a magazine writer, working for some of the top publications in Australia.