02/01/2026
On New Years Eve we attended a call out due to a lightening strike. Not an unusual event in the summer time, but this occurrence was an unusual and interesting one.
Thank you to the several locals who called 000, as there ended up being a few separate fires. Your assistance and information was invaluable in locating them, especially after the heavy downpour put most of the flame out. (Luckily!)
We located several small glows and investergated. The first few stops were small burnt areas with some tee tree to put out, nothing huge, and certainly no large trees involved. We followed to glowing spots along, ensuring they were all extinguished. When we made it to the top end of the paddock, there was a larger burnt area with some fallen pine trees, tee tree and an old stump to extinguish. But still no real sign of the lightening strike its self.
Usually we find a large splitintered tree, with unmissable splinted debris scattered around.
Nothing......
Due to the next day being hot, and these burnt patches being on the edge of a large patch of scrub, brigade members went back out next morning, just to ensure nothing would restart.
In the day light it was much easier to see what had occurred.
The gum tree that had been struck had NO burnt area closed to it. It had not splintered and had no canopy damage.
You could see the path the lightening took as the dirt, grass and leaf litter from one side of the tree had been blasted out of the way. It had then run along the roots of the tree, also visible as the earth was disturbed and broken open. (Video in comments)
One of the tree roots travelled to a star picket on a nearby fence line.
This fence line had 4 barbed wires, 2 new strands, 2 old rusted strands. Some of the spans had sections missing and you could see in the grass where the new barbed wire had blown to pieces 2- 5 inches long.
Some of these wires had caused small spot firers.
In the corner of the paddock, a tree was the corner fence post, you could see the wires still around this tree. For 6 feet one way and about 8 feet the other way the fence wires were inialated, there was no trace of them. Just the melted ends where the wires begun again.
Following the fence line along, back down towards the dam there were burnt patches, each one involved the fence line, wires were spot welded to star pickets. The barb wire was melted in places.
We were very lucky we got a heavy down pour.
If that had been a dry storm, we could have had a large fire with a front of hundreds of meters.
If you zoom in on the main photo you can see some of the larger burnt patches that head down towards the dam. Some patches we only a few meters in size and aren't visible from height due to the trees obscuring.
