It all depends on your location. I do not know Stella' s location and can only recommend the advice put out by the experts I am not in NSW, I live in Victoria. if we had a code red - which is the same as catastrophic I would have to leave the evening before. We are in a location that has been classified as undefendable , beside both thick coastal scrub and dense bush with only one road out through dense bush. Of course we also have to prepare our property in for the instance where a local fire starts and we become trapped. We have made plans for all eventualities and have pumps set up all the time etc... but due to the drought our dam is empty. ( and we are only on the edge of the drought no where near as bad as NSW)

from the booklet WHAT TO DO If you live in an urban area near grasslands, walk at least two streets back if a fire starts. If you live two or three streets away from grassland and a grassfire starts, stay where you are. Grassfires are unlikely to spread into built up areas. It is safest to do this by walking to keep roads clear for emergency services and help reduce road accidents. Grassfire is unlikely to spread into built up areas.Stay indoors and keep all windows and doors closed, place towels or blankets around the bottom of doors and window sills and don't use your air conditioner.

I don't believe Stella has a car. According to the booklet if you live in the suburbs 2 streets away is considered a safe distance form a fire, so can be easily walked. A fire in a suburb is a completely different kettle of fish to a fire in the bush, where water may be limited, ways of retreating may not be possible and you can get trapped very quickly

well fires do come right into suburbs like they did in Canberra a few years ago under certain conditions. giving a day catastrophic ratings will mean resources are activated, plans long put in place will be activated

do you have any parkland trees and shrubs near your house? did you get the fire preparedness booklet a couple of months ago ? or do they only send it to rural areas?? Here it is https://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/plan-prepare/fire-ready-kit this booklet will tell you exactly what to do Have a evacuation plan. a location that you could go to, make sure everyone in your family knows where this is. Have a bag with most important documents somewhere ready to grab Have water bottles filled in case water is cut ( probably doesn't apply to you ) Do whatever you do in case power goes out. Have hoses connected to all outside taps and buckets in handy ready to grab locations. Have a radio with batteries. Have radio turned on all day. There will be a siren noise with emergency alerts on the radio if there is a fire near you that you need to be aware of. Messages will also come on your phone. download the emergency app.- though it gets overloaded and crashes when every one checks it all day long on a bad fire day.

850,000 hectares of land have been burned in New South Wales since the start of their bushfire season this year. that is a lot of land. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-11/nsw-bushfires-850000-hectares-destroyed-worst-to-come/11691038 there are also bad fires in Queensland.

update Ds received a cheque for the $100 today. He will not bake for the competition again.

Possibly Australians are more interested in worldwide events???

I'm hoping Tuesday isn't as bad as forecast

thinking of you

I don't think cinnamon will be listed in Australia . it will just say spice

I open a children's saving account for all my children when they are small. It goes until they are 18 , then rolls over into an ordinary saving account. Up until the age of 13 they cannot withdraw money unless they have written consent every time from me. after 13 they need to accompany me to the bank, talk to the teller and fill in some paperwork . then they could have either/or both card, or their bank account have internet access. Seeing as my kids go thought a stage of not wanting to talk to people unnecessarily they never do this and don't withdraw money until they are 18 Here If they are a students there are no fees. here in Australia checks are something that is almost extinct. We haven't had a check book for over 10 years.

news reports are now at least 150 houses lost https://www.9news.com.au/national/nsw-fires-out-of-control-emergency-level-fires-rage-across-nsw-and-queensland/78a6ade9-7c93-4a45-b488-28a9de0680ce so so awful. and hardly anyone in those fire areas have any water to do any protecting of property due to the extended drought. 😞 We are not looking forward to the summer this year at all. We are further south, our fire season usually starts in December through to March,

60%

Hi guys, I am at the ordering stage for extra curriculum ideas for next school year - which here starts in January. This year we are doing modern age Do you have any games, toys, activities, books (apart form the usual books, we already have reading books etc ) that you could recommend for me to have a look at? This will be for my twin boys age 8. they both have IDs. We always try to make a visual display table of whatever we are learning

well we always worm the whole family every time we need to worm the dog. just in case.

https://www.combantrin.com.au/products/chocolate-squares/original just in case anyone else was wondering what I was talking about

here you get chocolate worming medicine for kids. it even looks like squares of chocolate. though here it isn't viewed as a big deal getting worms. way less of a deal then getting head-lice. When I was a child everyone was dosed twice a year as a matter of course if they had worms or not.

well Canadian and US wildfire fighters come to Australia every year for their off season. You would think the opposite would be expected. all the prerequisites including fitness tests and training are very similar.

no they were not going to have the flights payed for . it was ridiculous

the huge amount of deaths from drug criminals in Mexico is on the news here in Australia all the time. at least weekly, sometimes more often.

video interviews or Skype interviews should be more accessible for jobs aiming for foreign applications. 2 of my sons went through the application for remote area firefighters for Canada - it would be ideal for them that is what they do here. they are highly qualified in that field and have both a few years of experience. One of my sons whole team all did the application . the firefighting jobs in Canada is in the off season here in Australia. .. they went straight to the interview stage - even emailed to ask if they would like to be smoke jumpers. Then were told that the interview would be in 5 days in Canada.. It was right in the bushfire season in Australia, when there were big fires raging there was no way that any of them could take a week off to fly to Canada and back for a 1 hour job interview. their management even put in a request that there could be some sort of video conference for all the applicants job interviews in Melbourne but no exceptions were allowed. petty silly really

this 🙂

cheering for you .

Hope it is fixed soon