30 September 2009

Total Fire Ban Advice

Good Evening Everyone,
 
On Thursday, hot, dry and windy conditions are expected to increase fire dangers to dangerous levels in parts of NSW.
A TOTAL FIRE BAN has been declared for tomorrow, Thursday 1 October 2009.
 
 
The Commissioner, NSW Rural Fire Service will TOTALLY BAN THE LIGHTING OF FIRES from midnight tonight [Wednesday 30th of September] until midnight tomorrow night [Thursday 1st of September] in the following NSW Fire Areas:
Greater Hunter, Illawarra/Shoalhaven, Far South Coast, Lower Central West Plains, Northern Riverina, Greater Sydney Region.
The Blue Mountains Local Government Area is part of the Greater Sydney Region Fire Area.
 
What does this mean?
I'm glad you asked. Today will be warm, dry and windy. This combination can effect fire behaviour and cause smaller fires to increase in size and intensity quite rapidly. The lower-than-average humidity and strong winds - even in the absence of high temperatures - is of greatest concern.
 
Volunteer Firefighters from the NSW Rural Fire Service will be on stand-by at a number of locations throughout the area from 10am Thursday morning.
 
 
What can I do?
Be aware. If a bushfire does get going, the situation can change very quickly.
 
During days of Very High or Extreme Fire Danger, and on days where a Total Fire Ban has been declared, we will be doing our best to keep everyone informed of any major incidents that might impact on our community. This may not necessarily be a fire in the Blue Mountains, but even a fire in another area can send significant amounts of smoke in our direction.
If you are away from your email, but have internet access, you can keep yourself informed if anything is happening by checking our Updates Blog - http://ruralfirebm.blogspot.com/ - where a copy of every message send out to this list will automatically be posted.
 
 
If you see a fire, report it immediately by calling '000' and asking for the Fire Brigade!
 
 
 
Stay safe,
Eric.

29 September 2009

Smoke in the lower Mountains

There is currently no bush fire activity in the Blue Mountains.
Smoke from an earlier Prescribed Burn near Glenbrook continues to drift around the lower Mountains and Penrith areas. National Parks and Wildlife crews continue to patrol the area.
Light winds are expected to blow most of the smoke away overnight, however some smoke may still be visible by morning.

Smoke in Glenbrook area


Good Morning,

There is currently a small prescribed burn being undertaken at Glenbrook, adjacent to an area known as "Jelly Bean Pool" in the National Park.

This operation is being conducted by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, with assistance from NSW Rural Fire Service Volunteers.

Smoke is visible from a number of locations in the lower Mountains and western Sydney.

Inspector Eric J Berry
Community Safety Officer
Blue Mountains District
NSW Rural Fire Service


28 September 2009

Addition to Email Updates

Good Afternoon Everyone,

As part of the extension to our Public Information services for the coming fire season, we have now added another on-line repository that is linked to our Email Updates service - one that also allows better access to the information updates.

Currently website updates can only be done from an internet-attached computer, which sometimes can create a lag time between email notifications being sent and the information appearing on our website www.bluemountains.rfs.nsw.gov.au. Subscribers who are not able to access their email (for example being at work) are not always able to find out about current information. Additionally we have had a number of requests to provide our update information via RSS feed.

From today, each time a Public Information Email is sent, it will also be automatically posted to our new live-update blog page, which can be found at http://ruralfirebm.blogspot.com/. If I've got the tech right, if you visit the blog you'll see this message there.

For those who use RSS feeds, you can subscribe this page to your feed list, as well as adding it to your Google home page (and a few others as well). We have also added a facility to enable you to share the blog updates via your Twitter and/or FaceBook page. You'll also be able to post responses and comments on each post that is made.

This is an incremental step rather than any kind of quantum leap, however we do hope that this addition to our information services is of use to you - our community. I have included a quick survey on the sidebar, so please let us know your thoughts.

Finally, we will be publishing more information in the next 48 hours about the start of the Bush Fire Danger Period on Thursday, including answering some questions about the new Fire Danger Ratings system. This information will be uploaded to our website and an email sent to everyone once it is there.

Regards,
Eric.


Inspector Eric J Berry
Community Safety Officer
Blue Mountains District
NSW Rural Fire Service