ADELAIDE BUSHFIRES 2004

In March 2004, Adelaide was suffering another severe drought, with no rain for about 2 to 3 months previously. The weather can be exceptionally hot between Nov – Apr. Typically anywhere between 25 to 45 degrees Centigrade.

One morning in March 2004, a car allegedly drove over some wasteland and caused a small fire, which rapidly spread in the tinder dry grassland in the north east area, approximately 27 KM from the city of Adelaide.

Large plumes of white smoke could be seen on the horizon. Approximately 12 midday all the electric power was suddenly cut off, caused by the dense smoke particles short circuiting power lines in the hills area of the fire. This wasn’t supposed happen, because the emergency power backups also failed.

The whole of South Australia was plunged into full off shutdown, including huge shopping centres, supermarkets, offices everything that needed electric went off for a few hours.

In the meantime, in-between time, the bushfire had spread to a raging firestorm, driven by northwesterly winds originating from the hot red, Central Australian desert area.

This fire was absolutely massive and blocked out huge chunks of the sky. I happen to be working in the area so during my lunch, time I went to investigate this bushfire that seemed a bit too close to home.

As I drove towards the smoke, I was horrified to realize that this was not just a little bushfire in a field, but was a major conflagration. This would take a mammoth task, by both the Country Fire service and Metropolitan fire Services, to pool their resources together to annihilate the flames.

From the top of a hill over looking Greenwith, I watched the amazing sight of a 2km wide, fire front and it had bright orange flames and was racing at a fast running pace Linford Christie style towards the hill where I was standing. You would not believe that fire could spread so quickly, unless you watched it intensely.

More people started to congregate for this birds eye view. The wind was blowing the smoke from, the north east area directly across into the East and southern hills. There was a tremendous amount of smoke caused by the phenomenal quantity of dry bush-land, grasses and trees acting as fuel for the fire.

The conditions were perfect for a widespread disaster, as the flames surged towards the lovely new houses built recently in the lower part of Greenwith and surrounding countryside. Thousands of residents raced home from work to spray their homes and gardens with water. These were worrying times for many.

A helicopter was constantly ferrying water from The Little Para Lake to drop onto the flames and there were 3 light planes, scooping up seawater to drop into the raging inferno.
Despite all the stress and worry for the dire situation, there were also an amusing side to it. For example in my brief excursion to this hill, I saw a long convoy of sightseers who also wanted a look at this rare fire. The vehicles all followed each other into the suburbs near the hills.

Some people stopped their vehicles and took out deck chairs, camping chairs and binoculars, cameras and videos on the street! I saw a large furniture truck drive to where my car was parked and then climb on top of his cab with his flask and sunglasses watching the view…thirsty work mate!

A very mystical thing happened later on that day. Adelaide had not received ANY RAIN for about 2-3 months prior to this fire. That evening the rain started to fall and help to extinguish a large amount of the blaze, as did the fire fighters that attended, they were truly heroes because not on house was burned out.
After the rain had stopped that night and the fire was quenched totally, Adelaide returned to its normal dry drought conditions with NO MORE RAIN for at least another 5-6 weeks! Yet if that rain had arrived 24 hours sooner, then there probably would not have been any fires at all. The fact that the rain arrived at all just for one evening and put the fire out, is a case of Divine intervention in the “City of Churches”, where people’s faith is strong within some communities.

There have been several smaller fires since this one and a few inquiries as to why the power failure caused total pandemonium, including scores of crashes at traffic lights that all went out. Lifts were jammed and computers in premises everywhere crashed.

The final bill in compensation, for lost production and frozen food that had to be discarded, would run into millions of dollars.

Here are the photos that I quickly snapped before rushing back to work, oh, my laptop and photocopier isn’t working! Who has turned off the power? Please, can anybody help me find the switch…!