Finally got around to downsizing a video file from my dashcam that was taken while on the way home some months ago. Cam records in 3 minute sections and over 200Mb per section in HD. This bit of the video is about 19Mb.
If this link works I'd prefer that people note my comments prior to watching as otherwise a wrong impression of it being more dangerous that it really was might happen.
We saw the smoke from quite some distance away and were not that far ahead of following traffic, with one being a 3 trailer Road-train. The road in this area crosses a black soil wet season flood plain and we have spent enough years up here to pretty well know what the severity of any fires in this area would be like and that there is little probability of the fire itself blocking the road other than just by smoke. The road is raised above the plain with little opportunity to get off of the road to a safe area and the road shoulder isn't wide enough to fully clear the bitumen for most of it. Attempting a "U" turn just wasn't going to happen either. There was oncoming traffic at times so we were sure that the road wasn't closed off. There was also no chatter on the UHF. Not wanting to wear a Road-train driving over the top of us we pressed on. It's not unusual for unattended road side fires up this way in the Dry Season and generally you just have to deal with it. We were definitely not totally comfortable about it though and thought that the Fire Brigade should have been more concerned with the potential of a road accident than controlling the fire as it was well outside of the nearby town and going away from it. A bit further North we saw the Police headed towards it so they may have then blocked off the Highway.
http://vid670.photobucket.com/albums/vv62/phild12s131e/Fire LoRes1_zpsbpdmhvll.mp4
Edit: Seems to not work to watch online and needs downloading to view.
If this link works I'd prefer that people note my comments prior to watching as otherwise a wrong impression of it being more dangerous that it really was might happen.
We saw the smoke from quite some distance away and were not that far ahead of following traffic, with one being a 3 trailer Road-train. The road in this area crosses a black soil wet season flood plain and we have spent enough years up here to pretty well know what the severity of any fires in this area would be like and that there is little probability of the fire itself blocking the road other than just by smoke. The road is raised above the plain with little opportunity to get off of the road to a safe area and the road shoulder isn't wide enough to fully clear the bitumen for most of it. Attempting a "U" turn just wasn't going to happen either. There was oncoming traffic at times so we were sure that the road wasn't closed off. There was also no chatter on the UHF. Not wanting to wear a Road-train driving over the top of us we pressed on. It's not unusual for unattended road side fires up this way in the Dry Season and generally you just have to deal with it. We were definitely not totally comfortable about it though and thought that the Fire Brigade should have been more concerned with the potential of a road accident than controlling the fire as it was well outside of the nearby town and going away from it. A bit further North we saw the Police headed towards it so they may have then blocked off the Highway.
http://vid670.photobucket.com/albums/vv62/phild12s131e/Fire LoRes1_zpsbpdmhvll.mp4
Edit: Seems to not work to watch online and needs downloading to view.
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