Bonzer Words!: Bushfire
...Hourly they listened to the weather reports, noting where new outbreaks had started, and anxiously scanning the sky for tell-tale signs of smoke. He could smell the smoke in the air, long before it became visible. For days, the wind fluctuated, unpredictable, fire crews cut breaks and tried to establish containment lines, but suddenly, it was all to no avail. The fire had jumped the main road and could now be seen creeping down the hill opposite the township...
Wendy Ogbourne tells of a man who fought to save his home as an Australian bushfire came raging towards him.
No matter how hard he tried, he could not erase the image from his mind.
It was the most frightening thing he had ever seen, but at the same time, the most fascinating. The bushfire that had taken the homes of some of his neighbours had somehow spared his, but he knew he would never be the same again.
Summertime fires were a fact of life in Australia. Some deliberately lit, but many caused by lightning strikes deep in forested gulleys. The whole area parched through lack of rain, conditions were ripe for a bushfire of massive proportions. When the weather forecast predicted a horror weekend, with soaring temperatures and strong winds, it was just a case of waiting for the inevitable. Everyone prepared their houses as best they could, clearing underbrush around their properties, cleaning out gutters, collecting hoses and buckets, but they knew that if the fire came over the hill and sparks rained down on them, fanned by gale-force winds, there would be little they could do.
Hourly they listened to the weather reports, noting where new outbreaks had started, and anxiously scanning the sky for tell-tale signs of smoke. He could smell the smoke in the air, long before it became visible. For days, the wind fluctuated, unpredictable, fire crews cut breaks and tried to establish containment lines, but suddenly, it was all to no avail. The fire had jumped the main road and could now be seen creeping down the hill opposite the township. Flames leapt into the air and clouds of smoke spiralled upwards. As the fire front came closer, the sky grew darker, turning the sun an eerie reddish colour, and pieces of ash began to fall on the houses. Frantically the homeowners began to hose down their roofs, their fences, the trees in their gardens. Some of the elderly, some women and children decided not to stay—the SES always advised people to go early if that was their choice; not to risk getting caught at the last moment, when it was too late to leave.
But he would stay and fight. As the flames reached the boundary of his property, he knew it was in the lap of the gods. The tall trees were exploding one by one with a roar and a crackle, as the eucalyptus oil fuelled the fire. The brush low to the ground hissed and sputtered as it was devoured and carried the flames along to the next tree. The fire crews were working all along the edges, some with hoses, some beating at the ground with wet sacks and he joined them. But it was too hot to stay there long, and the fire was still creeping closer. Fear was strangely mixed with exhilaration, as adrenalin pumped through his system. His arms and legs moved automatically, ignoring fatigue and pain. It felt like his time in Vietnam, approaching a village where you knew the enemy was hiding. He had been one of the lucky ones—he had got over that, but would he be able to get over this?
When heat and exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him, he suddenly realised that the flames had stopped advancing. The wind had swung round and the fire was retreating back the way it had come, finishing off any patches of scrub it had missed on its advance. The fire crews were moving away, calling to each other, as he sank to the ground. Too close, he was thinking, too close.
In the days and weeks that followed, even the years, the image of the fire stayed imprinted on his mind - horrific, terrifying. Waking or asleep, he saw the flames, smelled the burning, heard the crackle and felt the fear. He knew he would never be able to forget.
© Wendy Ogbourne
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Wendy writes for Bonzer! magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au
