Chapter 18 - Nothing funny about bushfire.
Driving through fire in Wytaliba. Photo by Nessie Lieshman
One morning, in September 2019, after a relaxing morning of writing in bed, I went to check my messages, heading uphill and north west, as usual, to get reception at a spot we’ve named Five Ways for some inexplicable reason, given there are only four tracks meeting there. As I came into signal range, my phone started pinging, then pinging some more, and more. By the time I reached Five Ways, the screen was full of messages from family and friends, all asking if I was okay. My sister, Lindy had sent three or four messages, each one getting more and more worried and frantic sounding.
I feel sick with worry.
Have you spoken to Josh?
Please let me know you’re okay!
For some bizarre reason, my very first thought was that there’d been a terrorist attack…in Nundubbermere. As improbable as that sounds – that’s the first station my brain pulled up to, and while chugging past this unlikely scenario, I noticed a smoky smell. I checked the rear view mirror, then went to wipe it with my sleeve, thinking it was covered in orange dust, but no, it was reflecting the grey, pink and orange horizon. I jumped out of the car and swore, more impressed than really, really worried. The fire seemed a fair way off, down south, Ballandean way, but still - there were all those messages, so I started to go through them all.
My sister-in-law, LJ had sent a link to a news story about fires in and around Stanthorpe. Power had been lost to the town; seven properties destroyed.
Dad wanted me to ‘Drop us a line when you get a moment, Katie love?’ which was about as hysterical as he gets.
A girlfriend in Brisbane had sent the word FUCK!!! with a fire emoji and a question mark.
Ceccy and Ray were in Japan, watching it all unfold from their hotel room in Sapporo. They’d done as much fire preparation as they could before they’d left, so there was not much else they could do. I sent her a text saying we’d pop down to their place later and check on things.
I was comforted by the fact that there was no message from Josh, who lives just down the road, then I remembered he’d gone to Vanuatu to do lighting for a festival there. I rang his partner, Ali, asking if she was okay. She sounded in shock, which worried me, then she explained she’d just returned from a fasting/massage/mindfulness/retreat thing, and had eaten only lettuce for five days, so was finding it hard to snap into emergency mode. She’d been on the phone to Josh who’d rung from the airport to give frantic instructions on what to do if the fire came close: how to start the pump, which taps turned on the reserve tank, how to get the tip truck started - and most importantly, which guitars to rescue first. It must have been a lot to process on a lettuce filled stomach, but Ali sounded very calm and in control.
Many of the texts had been sent the night before, while we’d been down at the shed, lolling on the couch watching ‘Fargo’ on DVD for the thousandth time, blissfully unaware of any danger. I realised, I had smelt smoke during the night, but had assumed it was our fire.
As it turned out, unlike many, we were fine, but driving into Stanthorpe the next day, we were shocked to see how close the fires had come to the town. It made me realise how vulnerable we were, with no way of being contacted, no television or news or internet. What if the fire had sneaked up on us from the south west where the Leptospermum shrubs grew thickly and close to the shed. Or what if our neighbours desperately needed help and were unable to contact us? In the days following this scare, one of Smash’s brothers, who works for the Tasmanian Fire Department, gave us a stern lecture on the need for a Fire Emergency Plan, and the importance of having a fire safety kit including a battery-operated radio for news reports.
We took on his, and everyone else’s advice on board, got our kit ready, made a plan to push back some of the bush near the shed and tank, but within weeks, the fear had abated, the seriousness lessened and without a tractor or bulldozer, there was no way we could tackle the bush on our own. I made a note in our red Nundub book of Jobs to Do: Clear bush around tanks and back of shed, and got on to other, more pressing tasks, like installing a tea towel rail on the kitchen bench.
Fires continued to burn all over Australia, some a little too close for comfort. We watched them on the news, hands over mouths saying, ‘Tch, oh no, no no’, gasping when the flames leaped up cliff faces and crown surfed across forests at demonic speeds. I thought about all the wildlife fleeing, only to be caught up and incinerated. I wondered how hard it must be to make the decision to leave one’s property. But the grim reality of it all didn’t really sink in until someone we knew was directly affected.
In November, a terrible fire tore through Wytaliba, a community near Glenn Innes in NSW where friends, including Jackson’s biological father, Brett live. Brett has been with the volunteer fire service in Wytaliba for 26 years, 17 as captain. He said he has never seen anything like the November 2019 fire. Out of the 88 homes in the community, 56 were lost and many of the residents have not been able to return - Brett was one of the lucky ones.
Point scoring politicians and some media outlets were quick to blame a lack of hazard burning, but in reality when that deadly November fire hit, roughly 70% of Wytaliba had already burned in September by a fire originating in Kingsgate and the RFS had been containing other fires in and around Wytaliba. The only fuel was high up, in the tree tops.
“In November, our brigade and many others had been fighting the new Kangawalla fire for 3 or 4 weeks and had it well contained, in fact the entire fireground was blacked out in a 50 metre perimeter. Then the wind, at near 100 kph picked some embers from the centre of the blackened land and threw them at us.” Brett Miller, Wytaliba resident and Brigade Captain.
A video taken by one of the volunteer fire fighters, Nessie Lieshman, shows a group of volunteers in a truck, Brett at the wheel, driving along a road through the fire. It looks like it is night time, but it was actually only 4pm. The camera pans around from inside the truck, showing orange, grey and black to the left, up ahead and to the right. Brett is on the radio, asking for directions, the others in the truck are silent, watching the fire wash over the ground like waves across sand. Another video shows the fire even closer, flying past the car windows, then a burning tree falls across the road and the truck tyres screech on the dirt road. A voice on the radio warns them: ‘We need to inform you, there is fire in that area. Repeat, there is fire in that area.’ If it wasn’t so frightening, it would be laughable. Later, when I spoke to Brett he said they’d been on their way to a property belonging to an elderly couple, Martyn and Jenny Tonks but had had to turn back. Thankfully, the couple survived and thankfully, Brett and his crew were able to turn back because it was more than likely they would’ve been trapped. When the community members spoke on the 7.30 Program about the fire, they sounded stunned, weary, incredulous, worn out by the trauma. And angry.
There is an opinion piece in The Northern Daily Leader written by Wytaliba resident Badja Sparks that sums up the tragedy and highlights the appalling response by the government and some media outlets. When I asked Badja if I could quote him, he gave a short answer - ‘I am very happy for you to use anything I wrote. We are still recovering.’ I read through his piece again, trying to pick out a quote that would encapsulate his experience, but in the end, decided it was perfect in its entirety.
The Wytaliba Fire by Badja Sparks
I have been a member of the Wytaliba community near Glen Innes for 40 years.
We lost two of our community members in last Friday's bushfires, and the father of my great grandson is in Royal North Shore Hospital being treated for severe burns while trying to save his house and his deceased neighbour.
Nearly 50 per cent of our able adults are members of the Wytaliba RFS, a figure envied by many other brigades. Over those 40 years on our 3500-acre property, we have had more than a dozen out-of-control bushfires that were successfully controlled, the majority in recent years.
Over the last three years, in co-operation with NSW Forestry, National Parks and the RFS, we have had very extensive controlled burning in the state forest and national park on our perimeter.
On September 14, after an outbreak of fires across the Northern Tablelands, high winds caused embers to spot more than 10 kilometres onto the the centre of Wytaliba.
After an initial emergency the fire weather abated, but over the next week the fire spread across much of the property.
In a large operation more than 20 RFS trucks, more than 100 fire fighters, bulldozers and waterbombers were successfully deployed to help defend our homes. All were saved. Much of Wytaliba was blacked out.
Carol (Glen Innes mayor with 20 year RFS service medal) and I have a large cleared area around our double brick house.
That September fire burned to our perimeter. This was just two months ago.
Everything that should be done, was done and lots more.
The fire that came last Friday was of another order of magnitude altogether. A crown fire roaring in from the west on a hot afternoon with an 80km per hour wind.
“It wasn't on the ground, it was a firestorm in the air, raining fire.”
There was no fuel on the ground, it was already burned.
The heat ahead of the fire front ignited nearly everything in its path.
Before he saw any flame my neighbour's car exploded. They just escaped with their lives...see live footage on Monday's ABC 7.30.
Our house was severely damaged but not destroyed. We weren't home. Others were not so lucky.
Wytaliba has lost two lives and more than half our homes, our school, our bridge our wildlife and 40 years of work to build a community. What was our paradise is now ash.
Thanks to the heroics of Wytaliba RFS and residents, and the Reddestone RFS who incredibly crossed the burning bridge to help us, some was saved.
"Today's not the day to talk about climate change".....No, yesterday was the day, or the day before, or the month before, or the year before,....but it didn't get a mention.
Now we have the reality and the mention it gets is, "don't talk about it now".
So, the politicians (and the media) turn the talk to hazard reduction burns, or the lack of them, as something else to blame on the inner-city raving lunatics.
We had a bushfire two months ago that burned most of our property. It didn't matter. It burned again.
This is climate changed. We're in the worst drought recorded. A million hectares of bush has burned. Barnaby says it's Green voters and the sun's magnetic field.
Pray for rain, pray harder for leadership.
