I just came here to post the ABC's story on that. :)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-1...ornado/4380252
I was in Canberra when that fire happened. I was living in a student residence on campus. I stepped out of my room to go shopping late morning, and noticed half the sky was BLACK from smoke, which was drifting kinda in our direction.
It occurred to me that (a) I was the chief fire warden of the college, (b) although we had a plan for a fire
in the building, we didn't have a bushfire plan, (c) between the fire and our location was a big mountain covered in bush that hadn't been burned for twenty years, and there are more trees on campus than students. Uuh-ohh.
Luckily, I grew up pretty bushfire-savvy, so I spent the next three hours puling a bushfire plan out of my ear, got all the 36 hoses set up to cover the whole building, planned command structure, recruited volunteer firecrew from the residents, and everything. Later, the uni fire safety officer approved all this and it became the college's bushfire plan.
Even luckier, the fire stayed to the south west and didn't get within 10 km of us, but we were getting burned leaves drifting out of the sky. They had cooled enough to not start any spot fires, but it was an uncomfortable evening.
Our office manager's house was under direct attack. They lost the garden but saved the building. She never came back to work, that I knew of.
Nature can be a real mo-fo sometimes.
