Not exactly the kind of thing you want to be in the news for . . .

As you may have read/heard, our neighbourhood has been ravaged by a terrible bushfire which has completely destroyed over 70 homes including that of our good friends and next door neighbours. The last few days have been some of the most terrifying and emotional in my life, and I am so very relieved to report that by some miracle (and tremendous kindness from some neighbours down the road who we'd never even met, but who spent the entire night standing on our roof hosing down our neighbour's fire so that it would not take our house next), we had a house to come back to.

The fire was incredibly fast moving due to extremely high winds blowing the fire straight toward us. We went from smelling the first bits of smoke from the fire several kilometers away to being forced to evacuate inside of about 90 minutes. When we left our house mid-afternoon Sunday, the neighbour's house was already ablaze, and the police officers informed us that the fire department would not be coming to put it out as there were no more fire fighters available. We had only a couple of minutes to grab some important documents, Elliot's diaper bag and his doll and blanket, my computer and our hard drives, and of course Nacho before we were forced to drive away thinking that there would be nothing to come back to.

It was a horrible sleepless night as we tried to hold it together but quietly added up all of the things that we should have grabbed and would never see again, tried to work out how we could get a new place to live and a couple of basic necessities together before this little baby made his big entrance, and lamented all of the hard work that we had put into our renovation. It was one of the most torturous nights of my life.

Thankfully, by midmorning the next day, we were told informally that our house was still standing and believed to have no damage. By seven o'clock that night, Paul and I were able to come back to our house and start getting it back into shape to live in. The house was full of soot and the smell of smoke, but after airing it out all night, doing load after load of laundry of bedding and drapes and rugs, and having it professionally cleaned we are so happy and amazed to be back in our home more or less exactly as we left it three days ago.

Like I said, our neighbours weren't so lucky. When they left their house they had nothing but the clothes on their backs and a folder with their important documents. There was no time for the kids to grab toys or favourite things. And while all of their friends and family are joining together to do all we can to get them into a new house and back to some sort of normalcy, they will carry the scars of this fire forever. And I just can't help but wonder why them. Why not us? How can it be that they have nothing and we're able to get on with our lives almost as if nothing has happened? How is it that life can be so random and unfair to some? So many questions and all I can say is THANKS for all that I have. We are very very lucky.

Here's a photo of our house about 60 minutes after we smelled the first whiff of smoke and about 30 minutes before we were forced to leave.

Here's a photo (stolen from the local newspaper's site) of the fire raging out of control in the bush surrounding our neighbourhood on Sunday night.

And here's the closest bush to our house (about three blocks away). This area is usually covered with lots of green groundcover and a nearly full canopy of eucalyptus trees. It will be some time before it returns to its usual beauty.