Simple as ye like

[Joeboy]

Close one yesterday, our village in Turkey narrowly missed going in in flames thanks to the village lads and firemen working round the clock for 3 days to beat it back. Chilling here today poolside in Crete feeling very fortunate on multiple levels and looked over at next building set. How's this for simple? Thought you lads would appreciate.

[Mr Gus]

I'm guessing there is a local "beer" fund for local firefighters grateful second home owner tourists will be contributing to?

How long does the plastic last out there in that heat?

[nowty]

Close one yesterday, our village in Turkey narrowly missed going in in flames thanks to the village lads and firemen working round the clock for 3 days to beat it back. Chilling here today poolside in Crete feeling very fortunate on multiple levels and looked over at next building set. How's this for simple? Thought you lads would appreciate.

Your post reminds me of a bad situation in southern Crete in Aug 2008. We were visiting Preveli Beach which is a beautiful place, only accessible by boat or a long walk down from the main road or a short flat walk from an off road mountain track. We took the cheap lazy option via the mountain track.



On the return drive up the mountain, we were trapped in the car half way up the mountain track as the whole mountain side below us suddenly ignited. Flames in gale force winds engulfed the track in front of us and then behind us, there was no where to go, no where to hide. SWMBO was screaming as I desperately drove back and forth, into the flames, out of the flames, back in the flames again. I ripped part of the bumper off attempting a 3 point turn by reversing into the mountainside. The contrasted sight of dark black smoke and bright red flames just inches away from our faces, licking across the windscreen is something I'll never forget.

I was thinking its only a matter of time before either, we suffocate, the tyres catch fire or the petrol tank explodes. Luckily the combustible vegetation was mainly scrub and grass with very few trees, so the fire was very short lived and soon passed us by. When we drove further up the mountain we met a farming family who were in tears as they had lost their entire herd of animals to the fire. The locals in the next town told us it had not rained since February (6 months) and they had never had that situation before in living memory. Several ancient forest had been lost and that's 13 years ago now.

Preveli beach itself then burnt down in 2010, almost exactly 2 years later, see below.



The strange thing was I'd just pulled out of purchasing the house I now live in !

It was financial crisis time and I could not continue with the purchase as my own flat's value was in freefall, so we went on holiday instead. But that incident shook us up so much that nothing really mattered anymore. And when we returned I noticed the house was back on the market at a much reduced price. I still had the mortgage offer and my father lent me the deposit so I could still do the purchase without first selling my flat. So if I was still living in the flat, my renewable journey would never have even started.

[Joeboy]

NDE's are a powerful focus and keep us awake and in prime thinking mode. Their silver linings are not always immediately apparent

I had just finished the final works at the place Feb this year. SWMBO hasn't seen it. Yesterday as the fires raged ever closer,the trees igniting in a firestorm and through Turkish naval landing craft evacuating my friends I though 'well that's just fucken typical' and hoped all would be safe, 'fuck the building'.

The helios and Ukrainian aeroplane water dropping along with all the lads and lassies filling up every available water vessel and toting them up the mountain to the pumping unit literally saved the village. It's called Turunc. The sun rose on it today and all my friends are alive.

[nowty]

Just thinking more about fire and climate change and the obvious connections.

I recall as a child my parents used to sometimes have a little drive to a place called Belmont. Its a lovely little village in the hills adjacent to Winter Hill.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmont,_Lancashire

Now several times as a child we attempted to climb Winter Hill but the ground was always waterlogged summer or winter and there was no way you could ever do it without wellies on.

Then in 2007 I took SWMBO there and it was April. We went to Belmont and then onto the car park by Winter Hill, I said we will climb a little but its probably going to be to wet so I doubt we will get too far up it. We walked the whole way up to the top and it was dry as a bone, it truly astonished me.

I took this picture from the top looking back to the village of Belmont with its Church and I noted how brown everything was and I had never seen such an image in the north west of England before.



Then in 2018 in the hot summer, the whole hill was ablaze and It took several days to put it out.





The aftermath of the Winter Hill fire.


So its not just in some far away places these events are happening more and more, but here at home too.

[Joeboy]

Aye, sure enough. Worrying stuff. We are I think so far ahead of the politicians curve for behaving responsibly as individuals that it's ok to fit blinkers and enjoy life. Done/do our bit....

[Oliver90owner]

Apart from the obvious drying that you experienced since your younger days, there also other reasons for more fire damage.

Our forebears likely mostly knew how to avoid the problem but now the ‘greenies’ have dropped us in it, by having controlled burns on moors, and such like, banned.

Nowadays, there are not so many fire-breaks to prevent the whole area going up in smoke once it gets going. Instead of parts being burned off safely (at the right time of the year) it all goes up in the dry season.

No need to mention I-diots who go camping and barbecuing at inappropriate times in inappropriate places.

[Joeboy]

None of it is static, constantly in flux and parameters shifting. Now and then it pops out of humes liked params. I've been admiring our beautiful pine forests in Turkey for 30 years yet didn't give a thought to the idea of standing pine resin bombs and the fine idea of clearcutting back 20 mtrs from the village edge came very late indeed (yesterday). We don't always stay tuned into the scale the planet works on.

[nowty]

I recall, again as a child in junior school, we once had a supply teacher and he gave us a problem to solve.

He said you are on an island and a fire has started on the east side of the island and every part of the island can easily burn. The wind is blowing the fire from east to west. You are not allowed to leave the island or stand in the sea and you cannot stop the fire.

What is your solution to survive ?, we were all completely stumped.

His solution was go to the middle of the island and start a new fire, the new fire will travel to the west and you then follow the new fire as it travels west, then the initial fire will go out when it meets the already burnt ground.

This very memory popped back into my head when the fire had gone through and everything around us was black. SWMBO was still screaming but I knew at that point the fire could not come back to hurt us. I had difficulty getting my words out, I just kept shouting "Its black, its all black".

Another week or so later we were on the Greek island of Ios. Another nice place, but when we walked around where we were staying we became aware that everywhere we looked, was combustible, dry grass, bushes and trees, no fire breaks anywhere. Any other time I would not have given it any thought whatsoever.