The extreme temperature is bad enough, but we dread those Northerlies. They blast and roll straight down over the middle of our scorched continent, gathering heat, dust and velocity as they go. They bring fires, dust storms and burning embers. We were inundated with warnings; Total Fire Ban, take care of elderly, children, animals. Avoid going outside – to the beach, anywhere.

I’m lucky, I have a good air conditioner. I closed the house up early in the morning as the temperature crept past 30 C. Usually on a Saturday you can hear traffic, kids in backyards – lots of general weekend noise, but not yesterday. As the temperature crept up and up, it grew silent, the only noise the wailing of distant and close sirens.

I live in a far outer part of Melbourne, barely suburban. These foothills to the north east of the city are dotted with small townships that know too well the horror of bushfire. Each township has a CFA – Country Fire Authority station. We are out of reach of the metropolitan fire fighters, the CFA is manned mainly by volunteers, dedicated and heroic. They are the salt of the earth.

At around 4pm the temperature peaked at 46.7 C. That’s 116.6 F, the hottest on record. I went out to the back deck, but briefly as the heat sucked all the energy I had. Fully grown trees were dropping their leaves in a dry, brown shower, and hardy native plants were burned white. There have been water restrictions for a couple of years now and this was just the last straw.

By about 6pm the wind had swung round to the south west and was blowing off the southern ocean, bringing a dramatic drop in temperature. It was cool enough to get into the car, so I went into town for something to eat. People were emerging, things were springing back to life, but a cloud of smoke hung in the air and the scent of burning gum trees. Fires had broken out to the north of us and swept through a small township further up the road in the hills. This morning’s paper say that at least fourteen people are dead but as the ashes cool down and burnt out houses can be searched, the number may be as many as forty.

There have been days like this in the past and they have been given names by the media. 1939 had Black Friday when 39 people perished. In 1983 had Ash Wednesday which I remember well. I don’t know what they will call Saturday 7 February 2009, but it was the closest thing to hell I have ever experienced.

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