I just though I'd ask if our Canberra board members and their MINI's were ok? :(

My parents live in Kambah, which was the third worst affected suburb in Canberra. I drove to their house on Saturday afternoon to assist with the preservation of their home.

The fire reached to within about 200 metres of their house, but thankfully they live on the edge of a golf course, and the fire progress was halted by the green areas of the golf course. Had the golf course not been there, as it wasn't when my parents first moved to the area around 12 years ago, their house would surely have been destroyed. Houses on the side of the golf course where the firefront hit first were destroyed or seriously damaged.

Anyway the good news was that I left the Cooper S at home in the basement garage, and took my wifes Subaru Outback to my parents house :)

Things are still pretty hairy around here. My house is in central Canberra, in the suburb of Garran, which is in the middle of one of the only grassland areas not affected by the weekend fires. For this reason people living on the fringes of my suburb which backs onto grassland/forest are understandably nervous.

Sammy

We were out of town over the weekend and only got back on Sunday after everything died down. The reporting in the media outside of Canberra was over hyped and the rumors were spreading faster than the fire itself. If we believed everything we heard then all of Canberra was supposed to be burnt with many suburbs no longer existing. The reality was 402 houses out of the 100,000 odd in Canberra were burnt. The majority were adjacent to a pine forest.

Thats good news, chaps. :)

I'm ok and so is the MINI Garage. Being in Queanbeyan all I've had is smoke, ash and burnt leaves. Having said that I'm on the edge of town so if a fire gets away I'll be a little jittery. Not keen on the bloke who's parked a fuel tanker up the hill from me :D - I don't care if its a "mini" tanker, he can't win me over that easy.