Smoke gets in your throat...

... and your landscape.

This is the latest map of the current status, as you can
see, we've been having quite a time here in recent weeks.
And it's not over yet.

For some reason, and I can't remember why now, but
I took the above shot from the corner of my office
building. You can see the 'Dandenongs' in the background
with their TV transmitters, and the foothills in
the foreground. They're a part of the 'Great Dividing Range'
which, if you were to follow them, you'd end up in Queensland
in one direction or South Australia in the other.
There's towns (or villages if you prefer) dotted all through those
hills, and of course there are many thousands of people too.

The 'Dandenongs', or the nearest part to where I was
standing, are less than a half hour drive and the foot
hills start just up the road. Two people in my office live
up that way, one in the quaintly named town of Upwey.


Here's just one of the residents under threat of fire;


If you followed the hills around to the left
just a little way you'll get to some very devastating
sights as a result of Black Saturday. But there's also
been fires just on the other side and to the right of the
'Dandenongs' many of which are still burning.

The fires aren't limited to just this region of course,
there have been some devastating losses within about a
two to three hour's drive from here too. I have family
in at least two of the burning areas, one family barely
escaping with their lives and my sister keeping a
vigil for the last two weeks in her region.

Why am I writing this when I said there'd be no
more...? Simply because it's not over yet,
we're still enclosed in a burning ring of fire.

The pic below is roughly from the same position as
the one above, I took it half an hour ago.

The 'Dandenongs' are still there under all that smoke somewhere...
I hope.