The following is, for those wot haven't read it, the reappearance of what I wrote down in the immediate aftermath of the Canberra bushfires of January 18, 2003, and the following day. Mistakes abound, but, in the interests of not destroying any sense of immediacy the pieces may contain, I have not tampered with them. I sent this out to various people at the time, and it holds no further interest for those people, except to make them aware of the curious fact that my in-laws (bless 'em) sent a copy to friends and/or relatives in Scotland, who passed it on to someone else who passed it on etc etc and it ended up being read out (I hope they picked up and corrected the obvious typos) on something called Radio For The Print Handicapped or Radio For The Blind or some such, in Scotland. I post it here before it gets lost forever.
"Saturday 18 January 2003
We knew it was going to be hot. Julius was a bit below par so I
went to the market early and alone. Then Adrienne managed to source the last
unsold evaporative cooler in Canberra and made her own trip out to Fyshwick
to pick it up. So far so good. No mention of bushfires hitting Canberra. Our
plan was to hibernate for most of the day with a possible trip to the
library in the afternoon. Our friends Lyn and Rob from Lyons were coming
over in the late afternoon for a barbecue. At some point the wind sprang up.
The local ABC broke into the sports programme to say that fires were on the
outskirts of Canberra and some homes were threatened. About 3pm I rang Rob to
see what time they were coming over. We thought we would go to the library
around 3.30. Then all hell broke loose. The wind went crazy. The sky
darkened. The radio switched to disaster mode and tried in vain to keep
track of what was burning where. It seemed like the entire western fringe of
Canberra was under attack and fires were out of control. A dead cockatoo
fell from the sky into the neighbours' front yard. We abandoned the idea of
going anywhere. We filled the bath, the laundry sink, and both sides of the
clamshell sandpit with water, and untangled and connected the hoses.
Adrienne rang Lyn and Rob who seemed less concerned than us and said they
would still come over (which they did). Their son Jayden and our boys set to
playing together while I restlessly stuck my head out the door every few
minutes. Blackened leaves and bits of ash were being tossed into the yard
from wherever the fires were. The wind and heat were incredible. The
telephone had gone down. Likewise the internet. We decided to cook indoors.
The sky went as dark as night. And orange. It was 5pm. Lyn and Rob decided
to abandon dinner and took off towards home. Immediately they left the power
went off. We had only Jules's dinosaur torch for light and no batteries for
the radio. The car radio reported that three houses in the street next to
Lyn and Rob's were on fire. Presently it lightened up a bit. All around our
street people were up on roofs with hoses, blocking gutters and generally
dampening things down. Was this panic? No. To pack up and flee would have
been panic. On the other hand you could not have just ignored it. Fires were
spotting 12 kilometres from the main fire fronts, and Lyn and Rob's place is
only 2.5 ks from us. Things were seriously out of control. I borrowed a
ladder and, even though I am unable to climb more than three rungs before
someone has to come and get me down, I somehow got right up onto the roof,
with a hose in one hand and a wet towel in the other, and a trowel somewhere
else (I wish someone had filmed this). I cleaned out the gutters, blocked
the downpipes and filled the gutters. Then I somehow remounted the ladder
and got down. We went doorknocking in search of batteries or a battery
operated radio. Neighbours were running from house to house checking that
everyone was under control. It turned out that three of the men of the
street had by coincidence left Canberra on business that morning. It dawned
on me that the gas bottle from the barbie would be unhelpful on the back
deck in the event of fire, so I took it into the garage, along with the
table and chairs from out there and any number of plastic children's toys.
Adrienne got stuck into some piles of dead plant matter. We felt we were
well prepared. We were certainly exhausted. The kids had been given somewhat
short shrift. They kind of enjoyed the lack of power but it would also have
been an opportune time to throw on a video.
Then the sky lightened up and the power came back on (we later found out
that this was because we are on the same grid as the Canberra Hospital). The
radio told us that maybe 100 houses had burned. An easterly change came
through. Stuff was still falling from the sky but there was a sense that the
immediate threat was over (although we still didn't know where all the fires
were, and there is a large stretch of combustible bushland right behind us
to the east, which with the new wind direction made us all a bit nervous).
Exhausted we threw together some semblance of dinner, put the kids to bed,
and put our papers and a few spare clothes into the back of the car. Just in
case. That night around 8pm some of us discussed a plan for making sure
everyone became aware if something happened during the night. A couple of us
went for a walk up into the bushland behind us. People were still up on
roofs, either hosing down the house or just looking. It's weird to have a
conversation with someone who is standing on the roof of their house. From
up on the hill it was easy to see fires all around us, or so it seemed.
Hills were covered with red spots. There looked to be a large fire to the
east of us, and if you stood and looked at it the wind was blowing right
into your face.
Sunday 19 January
The sun came up. The world hadn't ended. Remarkably I slept
incredibly soundly. Adrienne's maternal instincts must have kicked in
because she was up a few times during the night looking out the windows and
checking the radio. What struck was how calm and still everything was. The
occasional helicopter flew overhead; the odd siren in the distance: but
aside from this, silence. Someone had removed the dead cockatoo during the
night. The radio now told us the magnitude of the disaster. And it was a
disaster. (And how grateful we are for the work of the local ABC radio
journalists.)
Our principal concern was Lyn and Rob. We still had no telephone, although
our mobile was now working again; but we couldn't get through. Thus I took a
drive across to Lyons around 9am to see how they had managed. The drive
itself was a weird experience. There were a small number of cars on the
road. None of the traffic lights were working. With the general stillness,
the overall effect was of the world having ended overnight but for a few
stray survivors driving round and round until the petrol ran out. But at
Lyons there were people out on the streets, standing around talking. The
hill that runs down to the edge of the suburb was burnt black. I was
grateful not to have driven past any burnt-down houses. Lyn, Rob and Jayden
were sitting around shaken but intact. When they got back to their house
everything was pitch black and incredibly hot; burning embers were flying
through the air and the wind was stinging their faces as they ran into the
house. Rob had then taken a drive around their street and had seen several
places burning, so he went straight back to defend their own place. They
still had no power or gas, so they were invited back to our place where they
could at least get a cup of coffee. An offer they couldn't refuse.
I continued to fortify our place, just in case. More water sources; less
combustible material around the house. By late afternoon we were all stir
crazy so we took the kids to Deakin playground for some semblance of "fun"
(although we knew we didn't really want to be there, and the kids probably
knew that, too). So we stayed for a while, checking the radio too
frequently, and then went home.
And that's about it, really."
