Fires in the highlands

[Dan]

This is worth having a look at, webcam at little pine lagoon.
Worth scrolling through the footage from today, it's pretty nasty up there at the moment.

https://anglersalliance.org.au/web-cams/little-pine-lagoon-webcam/

[pendy]

any of you guys near the fires,if so,take care and be safe.looks like its a nasty one.

[rogun]

On todays camera at Penstock we can see still images of deer feeding and drinking beside the lagoon early morning and then later on, numerous images of the water bombing helicopters can be seen filling up their large buckets.

[reddory]

It's dragging on, isn't it?

Both the central highlands and the Huon Valley getting gradually eaten away.  Here in Huonville we've been under a smoke pall almost unbroken for over a week, waiting with breath held to see where it's going to creep to next.

Meantime I've watched as one after another of my favourite fishing spots - here and in the highlands - is either incinerated or put off-limits, waiting to be incinerated.  Clearly there's a bunch of us in these areas who aren't going fishing again any time soon!

So, it would be really great if some of you who CAN still get out, would put up a report occasionally, so the rest of us can at least read about it, even though we can't get out ourselves for the time being!

[Paikea]

I just logged on thinking to ask if any members are in the fire area.  You beat me to it.

I thought that you may have been in trouble Reddory (Paul) but sounds as though you are OK at present.

Very sad to see good fishing spots affected, I don't know much about river fishing but assume that the burnt out cover on the banks will make the fish jumpy?

I hope that no-one has lost their house or any equipment, the coverage on TV  has not been as comprehensive as it normally is so we are not well informed at present.

Stay safe and good luck all.

Paikea (Hank).

 

 

[reddory]

The heat and smoke can directly affect the fish, temporarily.  But after that, who wants to go fishing in a blackened, blighted landscape?  Some of the streams I love, like the Weld, will take 100 years for the vegetation to re-establish, if ever.

Please if you can go fishing, do so, and put up a report?

[reddory]

A few pics I grabbed on an earlier visit to the Weld:

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No idea if they are the best one - I just selected at random.  Point is, all that Huon Pine and other slow-growing vegetation now gone, and maybe 100 years before it gets back to anything like this again....

[Rohan]

A few pics I grabbed on an earlier visit to the Weld:

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No idea if they are the best one - I just selected at random.  Point is, all that Huon Pine and other slow-growing vegetation now gone, and maybe 100 years before it gets back to anything like this again....

Beautiful place I have a mate who has bees in those areas and has lost some . He said the bees can be replaced but the loss of the leatherwood is a long term problem as it's very slow to regenerate


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[Paikea]

I have been looking at Google Earth to try and locate the Weld mentioned in Reddory's posts but no luck so far.

Would appreciate someone telling me where to look.

A gorgeous looking stream in Reddory's pics, hard to imagine what it might look like after the fires. Hopefully at least parts of it will be saved.

Cheers

Paikea

[Buggerme]

Have a look at this. A tributary of the Houn River......https://www.ifs.tas.gov.au/fisheries/waters-a-z/weld-river-south/

[reddory]

Search for "Judbury, TAS" on Google Earth.  It's on the Huon river.  Follow the Huon westwards until you find the Southwood mill and a bridge across.  The Weld mouth is a couple of km further west (upstream) from there.

Here's my capture of it, with features noted.  The red wiggly line marks the stretch of river where the pics were taken.

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Then if you go to Tas Fire Service website and look at the list of current alerts, you'll find their map with a pretty accurate and up-to-date overlay showing where the fire(s) have burned so far.

[Paikea]

Thanks Buggerme and Reddory. I finally found the bridge over the Weld just North of the junction with the Huon river. Google Earth has one pic marked there captioned Weld River, otherwise totally devoid of river names or pics.

What a fabulous area, you could spend a lifetime fishing it and only cover a miniscule part. I hope that the fires do not raze the whole area but see how difficult it must be to contain fires in such densely forested areas.

Cheers

Paikea

 

[reddory]

RAIN AT LAST! (Thursday morning, 7 Feb)

HOORAY!!

Let's hope we get enough to wipe the fires out!

[reddory]

Well, now I've seen everything.

Wed Feb 13, at 7.30 am the Tas Fire Service still listed the Riveaux Road (Huon Valley) fire as one of several in the south still active - hot spots all about the place that could rear up and bite us again if we get another burst of hot and windy weather.  The nearest it has come to Huonville is 4-5km away to the south-west.

At the same time (7.30 am, Feb 13) I looked out my window towards the Snowy Range, some 20-odd km away to the west and saw this...

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-Biggest dump of snow since about last August.  Incongruous, isn't it?

[rogun]

Living up to our reputation of four seasons in in one day,  and then sunshine,
but still, I do think that I rather enjoy our relative safety on out little Island state.
So glad we don't get those terrible monsoons, floods etc,