by Sharyn Munro
Our major neighbour, National Parks, was fully occupied with fires in other parks, threatening greater numbers of properties, and could send no help to our mountains. I said I’d be there, and drove home at first light. I was alone, as my partner had unbreakable commitments elsewhere, but my son would be going up too.
The mountain grasses were as brown as the pastoral valleys through which I’d driven. Dry leaves and fallen sticks waited like well-set kindling beneath the trees. My house yard was overgrown with long, bleached tussocks, and the usually green grass in between was dead.
Our brigade guys were already there assessing what was needed. There was no chance of turning or containing the fire; it would be a matter of trying to save each cabin or house as the fire reached it. They would send in the bulldozer to clear breaks around my house yard and my son’s near-finished cabin further away, over near the lagoon. A crew from another brigade would be here later. I was to keep an eye on the fire’s rate of approach, ready to call fire-fighter friends on standby to bring their ute and slide-on fire pump to help my son save his place.
I raced about trying to make up for three months’ neglect. I cleared leaves from gutters and plugged them with rags only to find that they sagged forward too much to hold water. Brackets had been undone at some stage, probably to remedy the inadequate fall and drainage, but not refixed. I didn’t have a riveter and there was no time now for fiddling with them. Climbing back down the ladder, I muttered anew about half-done jobs.
My son was busy at his place clearing bracken and tussocks away from the cabin, which, although clad in corrugated iron, was elevated, timber-floored, so vulnerable from below. Nor was it yet fully sealed under the eaves. We had debated the siting for his cabin. He’d wanted to build out on the point where the sunset views were grander; I’d insisted it be much, much further back from the edge, to create a flat distance in which the fire could slow down, lose heat, and allow people to safely defend the cabin from the fire front, which would invariably come up that western slope below. I’d seen fires roar up there; he hadn’t. I held firm. He’d given in, though with an air of humouring rather than believing me. I had a feeling that by tonight he’d be glad he had.
I rang a friend in the next valley, whose place would be first in line of the fire. He reckoned two hours at least before it got to him. I thought how much easier this was than the fire in 1980, before we had phones, when I’d had to keep running down to the escarpment edge to check the fire’s progress. From a rocky point there I’d actually watched the fire sweep over a shed, without realising that this man and another were sheltering on the lee side of that shed. They’d survived, as the fire moved so fast, but he’d had to restrain his companion from panicking and running. So he knew fires; I could trust his judgement.
I turned on the big fixed sprinklers in the orchard so at least the western end of the yard would be soaked. Had I been here those last months I’d have been using them to keep the grass green, but the whole yard was now crackling brown. I began moving smaller sprinklers about to wet other areas, like in front of my glasshouse, but with six agricultural sprinklers going there wasn’t a lot of pressure left. I cursed our stupidity in having installed only one gravity delivery line, and that only 11/4-inch diameter!
Crouching, I raked out the dead leaves from under the verandah, bumping my head often on the spidery floor joists in my haste. I’d done it before I went away, but despite the fine aviary netting across the front of the verandah piers, many more small leaves from the wisteria had found their way in.
Everything loose on the verandah had to be removed so burning leaves wouldn’t lodge behind or amongst them. The big gas bottle had to be disconnected and put somewhere safe—but where? For some reason I decided the toilet would do, and managed to half-roll and half-drag the bottle up there. I think my idea was that, if it blew up, no harm would be done to anything else. I barrowed the verandah things over to the power shed and stacked them in there.
Then I saw the sprinklers’ shining arcs wilt ... stop. Surely it wasn’t possible that I’d run out of water, with 11,000 gallons in those tanks, when I knew my son had pumped very recently to fill them? He came running down the hill—the dozer had cut the buried pipe in two places; he’d turned off the tanks so we hadn’t lost too much water, but did I have any joiners?
I couldn’t find any the right size. This was a nightmare scenario. I rang around and found someone not too far away, much closer than town at least, who thought he had some in the shed, and my son headed off, going fast for good reason for once. Luckily we had a few hours.
At least he’d not be delayed by opening gates. They were all now wide open so that Jess and Jasmine, the two horses, wouldn’t be trapped. They’d have to take their chances. The support tankers had been using my main dam to refill, so that gate needed to be left open anyway. Time was precious with such a raging fire.
To the west the sky was a vast smear of brown, with sporadic higher yellowish billows of smoke. The air was heavy with the sweetish, horribly familiar smell of a eucalypt forest burning. The day was heating up, and there was a westerly wind—the very worst kind for us. I got into my fire clothes of cotton long-sleeved shirt, jeans and boots, with a cotton scarf tied at my neck ready to pull up over my nose and mouth, and goggles hanging ready. I knew how difficult it would be to cope with the heat and smoke otherwise. I pulled my old Akubra down hard on my head to defeat the wind. I’d turn the hose on myself nearer the time.
The small crew from an outside brigade arrived. The captain took one look at my clearing and declared it a safe place from which they could defend my house. I was asked to prioritise buildings for saving, and I chose the house and the power shed as critical. They could pump from my small dam in front, and ran out their long flat hoses to reach beyond the house. I was following them around, apologising for the unprepared state of the yard, ‘I’ve been away for three months, I only got back last night ... sorry, it wouldn’t usually be this dry.’ But they didn’t seem interested. ‘Bloody weekenders!’ they were probably thinking.
The sprinklers sprang into life again. Thank heavens! The captain told me to keep the sprinklers going, and he and his crew drove off to check out my son’s cabin. It was about 2.30p.m.
The phone rang. It was from my friend on the front line. ‘It’s spotting on my place already, ’ he yelled. ‘It’ll be up there in under half an hour at this rate!’ Something had drastically changed in the fire’s route and pace. Two of our brigade members arrived and I rang our standby pair to come urgently. They did, in record time. Once they reached my son’s, the main crew would return here, I presumed.
One helper and I were wetting down what we could, playing our limp hose sprays over the verandah and the plants and grass in front. I was getting anxious that the fire crew wasn’t back here.
Then we saw the fire. Through the tree line on the edge of my escarpment, we could see flames. ‘Where the f—k are they?’ yelled my helper.
I began running to turn off the sprinklers; we were going to need all the pressure here at the house. The shed and workshop would have to be sacrificed. But just then I saw the fire crew’s Toyota tearing across the paddock to us. I ran back to my station by the tap below the bottom north-eastern corner of the house. The Toyota pulled up in cloud of dust; the crew leapt out and began connecting hoses.
‘About f—n’ time!’ said my helper.
I f—n’ agreed.
There was a mighty roar as the fire came over the edge; all the rough-barked tree trunks down the hill from my house began exploding into pillars of fire, well ahead of the actual ground fire, and igniting the grass beneath them as well. This wasn’t crowning, it was radiant heat at its worst. I turned the hose on myself, pulled my wet scarf up over my nose, the goggles over my eyes. Here we go!
Within a minute the fire had travelled uphill several hundred metres, leapt the bare dirt of the dozer break and was inside my house yard. The noise and heat were dreadful. I could hear helico
pters somewhere above it all.
The crew were spraying the house and verandah with their big hoses and power nozzles; I was concentrating on putting out the fire in the grass as it came through the fence, but I remember thinking, ‘Hope they don’t aim too hard a jet on the mudbricks!’ My face felt as if it was burning, even though I was backed right up against the house, with the hose jet as full on and as far-reaching as it would go.
Moving so fast, the fire soon leapt the track and was past the house and yard, with the wind whipping flames and sending burning leaves and sparks everywhere, including back downhill. I managed to put out the fire in the back of the bay tree next to my side fence, then ran to see what was happening in the rest of the yard. Spot fires were starting everywhere but the fire crew were racing about extinguishing them.
I saw one right near the toilet. ‘The gas bottle!’ I yelled. ‘There’s a gas bottle in there!’ They were right on to it, although they must have wondered why I kept gas in there.
I ran back down to patrol as much of the fence perimeter as I had hoses to reach. All the trees and shrubs within 3 metres inside the fence were burnt, and the piles of horse manure I’d mulched them with were smoking and smouldering. I raked them out flat to hose them, realising they were just processed dried grass after all, so I should have thought of them as a hazard, but hadn’t. Amazingly, the shadecloth-covered glasshouse seemed intact—the crew must have hosed it at the right time, as it was only about 15 metres from the fire edge. The wind was still strong. Spot fires had even started inside the sodden orchard area, although they hadn’t burnt far.
The fire was well away up the hill. The captain said he thought it was OK here now and they’d better get on to the next place if I thought I could manage the mopping up. I thanked him effusively, and he said, ‘You did well.’ As I’d only held a hose, I wondered what he usually met with—hysteria? I didn’t tell him I’d been through this before, without a hose, nor that I’d done fire crewleader training. He reminded me that if this wind kept up I’d need to keep checking throughout the night for spot fires.
One helper took off on his trailbike to protect his own place on the next ridge. The other, our deputy captain, stayed, anxious to see how my son’s place and its protectors had fared. He kept trying to get across the intervening burnt area on his bike to check, but it was far too hot still. For half an hour he kept trying, as well as putting out smouldering tree trunks and tussocks at my place. I was getting really worried; the fire could have been even fiercer over there, with all that blady grass on the slope below. The slide-on tank was only small—had they run out of water?—but the fire had moved so fast that surely they were OK?
Then I heard the bike again. ‘They’re all right!’ he called. ‘So’s the cabin.’
My heart settled. Through the blackened and smoking bush I saw the ute returning.
I got cold drinks for us all and we plopped onto the ground to recover our wits and our energy, realise our good fortune—this time. Aftermath smokes were lit by some. Only then did I think of my lagoon paperbarks, less than two years old. My son said the fire had roared up the gully to the lagoons even faster than it had towards his. So that would be the end of my regeneration dream.
He also said it had been easy to halt the fire at the dozer break around his place. He grinned at me and raised an eyebrow.
Our helpers moved on to aid others. Then I remembered my spotter in the next valley. I rang, not really expecting the line to be working, but it was. He was fine except for a burnt hand when he’d tried to open the door after it was all over. A helicopter had landed soon after the fire had passed to see if he was OK.
The sudden speed of the fire had surprised everyone, including himself; it had got to his place before any brigade crew could. He’d survived inside his tin shed/cabin, crouched on the cement floor with wet blankets over himself and his dog. I knew what a perfectionist he was; his shed would have been absolutely sealed, spark and ember proof. He said the tin of the shed had become so hot it had glowed blue. Now there’s a man who’s been intimate with fires.
I rang to reassure my daughter, my partner. My son reconnected the gas; we ate something and began our vigils. Every two hours, we agreed, we’d get up and check. He only had a backpack of water and a rakehoe, as there was no water connected at his place.
Checking my four garden hoses, I laid them out to their furthest reach, ready. The wind had dropped a little, but not enough. The thick smoke of active fires was still rising from the valley below and, as dark fell, on the slopes around us we saw the red towers of burning trees, sending bright showers of sparks flying through the night. From the nearer ones I could see that these ‘sparks’ were small burning pieces of fibrous bark, and that many were still alight when they landed.
My bed gave little sense of haven. I kept opening my eyes at every crackle or thud from the forest, so close, so visible, through all my windows. I set the alarm. At 10, at 12, all was well. At 2, it wasn’t. The trunk of the big white mahogany just up the hill—the one we’d set up the stove under, camped near, all those years ago—was alight at the back. So were the tussocks beneath it. I turned on the tap to full pressure, the hose jet as fierce as I could make it. I had to put the fire out before it got much higher up the trunk and set the broad canopy of leaves alight. I alternated my targets, from grass to tree. The fire’s progress through the grass was halted; I stamped on the bases of the tussocks to be sure.
Although the wind was from the west, in my clearing it gets thrown into turbulence, sent off course by the tree rim over which it must first pass. That would have been how sparks had blown back downhill to set this tree alight; if its leaves caught, a similar gust could take them down onto my house and shed. I knew I could not protect both on my own. And there were other unburnt eucalypts nearby in the yard. This could start a bigger fire than I could save the house from.
White mahogany bark is rough, deeply interlaced and furrowed, so the fire in its depths was hard to extinguish. Despite my furious hosing, it was still smouldering in there. I hacked at the thick bark with the hoe, dragging it apart; flames leapt up anew as oxygen fed them, but the water soon put them out. I waited. It seemed OK. I hosed again.
But how was I to trust it, to go back to bed and sleep? I stomped about in the semi-dark for a while longer, hosing the trunk and all the ground around the tree yet again. Finally I turned off the water. The ensuing relative silence quickly became the sounds of a still-feeding fire on the move—the loud crackling, the long whooshes and brief roars. The distinctive smell of water on burnt vegetation, on charcoal and ash, filled the immediate air, but as I walked back down to the house it was overpowered by the active bushfire smell. Dry, sickly-sweet, pungent, it permeated the whole range, ridges and slopes, creeks and gullies, and far beyond. It was inescapable, even inside the house. It weighed me down with knowledge, with speculation, with fear. Only now did I remember the horses. I knew the whole block was burnt; the dam would have been their only hope. I did not sleep.
At dawn I walked to the dam with a bucket of grain, calling them. A neigh answered me as I got closer. On the small island in the middle of the two interconnected dams stood the horses. The reeds that choked the shallower dam on the western side had burnt to the water line, and had led the fire onto the short grass of the island. I don’t know why it had stopped where it did, but the horses were standing on unburnt grass. Could they have stamped it out? There was also a narrow unburnt area on the flat eastern shore of the dam, where the roos and wallabies always keep the fine native grass cropped very short. That was the closest shore to the island, and quite shallow to cross as it was where the dams met.
I stood there, called, shook the bucket. Jasmine splashed into the dam and walked to me, the water only up to her shoulders. I tipped some grain out for her, patted her. She seemed fine. I called Jess. Called again, banged the bucket. She neighed, but did not move. The grass left on that tiny island was already eaten right down. She’d starve if she
didn’t come over.
I went back and rang my daughter, who reminded me that Jess hated water, wouldn’t step through even a shallow creek if she could avoid it. Only her strong survival instincts could have made her go over there yesterday. My daughter couldn’t come up to try to coax Jess off until the weekend, two days away. I’d need to get feed to her until then.
We had a very tippy old aluminium canoe. The little jetty was burnt, so were the plastic-bladed paddles, but the canoe itself was fine. I found a flat piece of wood to use as a paddle and for the next two days I ferried buckets of feed over to Jess three times a day. Nevertheless she grew visibly thinner, and the ground was covered in her manure. I couldn’t understand why her good sense didn’t bring her back through the water to join Jasmine on the shore. She refused to be led across by me.
I was cranky with her because there was so much else to do after the fire that I didn’t need canoe trips. Luckily the wind dropped a day later and we had a storm, bringing enough rain to halt the fires and save the valley behind me. The pressure was off. And that weekend my daughter coaxed Jess back through the water. We could marvel then at the horses’ intuitive flight to the island, and wonder at how even Jasmine had remained there after the fire had passed. Waiting for us to assure them it was safe?
All the house gates were left open, as my yard and around my son’s cabin were the only oases of green to be seen anywhere on the ridge. Not only the horses but also any surviving wallabies or other animals would need that feed. They came, and ate just about everything down, but I was glad to have some green to offer them.
They came also to die.
After a few days, I began to smell death. I stood on the verandah, scanning the forest edge, thinking it must be coming from there. Turning to go inside, I happened to glance down, and through the gaps between the decking boards I saw greyish-brown fur. Kneeling, I peered closer. Black paws, limp head—a wallaby. I moved along the crack; more fur, grey, fluffy, pale belly—a possum? And I could see more bundles of fur. There were probably five dead animals under there. I didn’t want to go closer.