4 days of fire

From Sunday afternoon, until tonight. 3000 ha of mountain, forest, national park and private land. Houses, infrastructure, habitats.

Gone.

We've had front row seats, protected by our lake and as always awestruck by the extent of our view. I've seen so much flame - fields of flame, walls of flame, literally flame tornadoes, tsunamis of embers and flames in every colour imaginable.
We've heard the crackle while lying in bed, smelt the smoke and tasted the ash. We've had 3 broken nights of sleep as we feel the flickering reflections on our closed lids, and frequently wake to squint out the windows and marvel at the extent of it - growing and changing before our eyes, consuming the entire expense of the mountain range we're privileged to enjoy every day.
We've had helicopters fetching water from the lake in front of us and water-bomb planes droning overhead to and from their filling stations to the fire. We've had sirens all hours of the night and day.

But we've not had to evacuate. We've not lost a thing except some sleep and productivity (from watching and watching and watching). We've not been out there fighting this beast, we've not been inconvenienced much at all (some days off school for the girls, some worse-than-usual traffic). We've been very lucky.

It's been a wild few days.