Fires: 14 Years have passed but the memories linger

I remember the bushfires vividly. I was a lucky one, some of my clothes got a bit singed, like many I didn’t have a lot of time to do anything, but chose to stay and fight. I loaded the cat, sporting memorabilia and a few other things into the car just in case I chose to go. My neighbour, who is a dutch lady was not sure what to do and I told her to go. A few days later she told me a story of how as a child they had some devastating floods in the Netherlands and she remembers sitting on the roof until she was rescued.

I really wasn’t prepared to face a full on fire, I got the hose ready and realised water pressure was pretty poor just as the front reached the firetrail behind my back fence. I used what water pressure I had put out a few small spot fires as they jumped the trail, I stamp a few others out, I was concerned the rather large gum trees next to my house were enough fuel to set my house alight. Then the professionals turned up and I fled. I couldn’t see, could barely breath, I drove off in tears to my parents who were in a relatively safe suburb.

I returned later that night relieved to see no homes were lost in my suburb, but there was the surreal glow from lots of tiny fires still slowly burning out across the Murrumbidgee.

I don’t recall the ABC being a problem, it was a great source of information from my memory. I do remember hearing the cricket (eerily an Ashes test match), as I drove home in the afternoon and the city was dark at 2pm or so, from all the smoke. I think the fires took all by surprise, but when I turned the radio back on all I got was fire alerts and I think thats when I realised Canberra was at risk of having a bushfire on its doorsteps. I think from when I first saw the fire come over the furthest peak to my back fence took about 30 minutes.

I just hope we learnt from the fires.

Charlotte Harper said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

As heart-wrenching and touching as this story is, I’d also like to hear about the Mr. Fluffy families and their plight. With over 1000 homes needing to be demolished entirely, some families having to leave belongings behind and tens of thousands gambling with the prospect of getting asbestosis at some point in their future, I’m sure there are some stories to tell. I think it is just as big a crisis as the bushfire, though not as exciting a story to tell.

I think that’s an excellent idea, @wildturkeycanoe, thank you for the suggestions. We’ll put together a similar article calling for such stories in coming days. Let’s stick to the fire stories in this thread, though.

Great idea WTC, that should make a good article (series?) itself too I agree. +1

wildturkeycanoe said :

As heart-wrenching and touching as this story is, I’d also like to hear about the Mr. Fluffy families and their plight. With over 1000 homes needing to be demolished entirely, some families having to leave belongings behind and tens of thousands gambling with the prospect of getting asbestosis at some point in their future, I’m sure there are some stories to tell. I think it is just as big a crisis as the bushfire, though not as exciting a story to tell.

I think that’s an excellent idea, @wildturkeycanoe, thank you for the suggestions. We’ll put together a similar article calling for such stories in coming days. Let’s stick to the fire stories in this thread, though.

As heart-wrenching and touching as this story is, I’d also like to hear about the Mr. Fluffy families and their plight. With over 1000 homes needing to be demolished entirely, some families having to leave belongings behind and tens of thousands gambling with the prospect of getting asbestosis at some point in their future, I’m sure there are some stories to tell. I think it is just as big a crisis as the bushfire, though not as exciting a story to tell.

Masquara said :

There was a woman in my workplace back in 2007 who had a short fuse. She drove a really crappy car for someone in her position. I eventually discovered that she was an uninsured fire victim starting again from nothing in her 40s. I wish the workplace had alerted more of us, because she was very difficult to deal with, and had we known …

A good reason in general why one should not judge without all the facts at hand, give someone the benefit of the doubt where you can. 🙂

I have many personal memories of the fires including the suburban hillsides on fire along with the homes and cars burning along deserted roads. After working all night in the fire zones of Weston Wreek, Woden and Tuggeranong there is one odd memory that stands out. We were covered in dust and ash as was our vehicle which needed refueling. There was no electricity in the burnt suburbs so we had to drive to the petrol station in Manuka which had pumps unaffected by the fires.

After leaving all the devastation in the western suburbs to drive ten minutes over Hindmarsh Drive and into Manuka we were astonished to find a surreal scene of southside normality. We drove past all the cafes, chock-a-block full of clean and casually dressed people, sipping their lattes and eating Sunday breakfast as if nothing had happened. Everyone was reading a copy of The Canberra Times filled with pages of stories and photos about the death and destruction barely out of sight over the hill. We must have looked crazy as we stood at the petrol station in our filthy uniforms with our mouths wide open staring at the people across the road.

That sensation of the stark contrast between Canberra’s fortunate and unfortunate has never left me…..

There was a woman in my workplace back in 2007 who had a short fuse. She drove a really crappy car for someone in her position. I eventually discovered that she was an uninsured fire victim starting again from nothing in her 40s. I wish the workplace had alerted more of us, because she was very difficult to deal with, and had we known …

John Moulis said :

The thing I remember was how ABC radio 666 was lionised as being wonderful during the emergency. They even won a Chief Minister’s award. I turned them on about an hour into the crisis and they were broadcasting cricket. I have heard that local ABC people had to go through bureaucratic hoops with the Sydney bosses before they could pull the plug on the cricket and go into emergency mode. At one stage it was believed that Cricket Australia could sue the ABC for breach of contract if they didn’t stay with the cricket.

I went up the dial to 2CC and they were in full emergency mode. The siren was going every few minutes, ads were pulled and people were phoning in about the fires in their area.

About 30 minutes later I switched back to 666 and they were playing a pop song. After the song was a long interview with the Emergency Services boss who didn’t have a clue about what was going on. This was borne out a few weeks later when it was revealed that SES workers had to tune into and get information from the Queanbeyan radio because the ACT one was in disarray and unreliable. I switched back to 2CC and never went back to 666.

Another thing I remember was how the electricity was cut off then restored to the houses across the road the following day while we were still lighting candles and cooking meals with spirit burners for a further three days. Each night I looked with envy at the brightly lit houses across the street. It was before smartphones and the only Internet connection I had was the desktop. When the power finally came back on I checked my emails and there were hundreds of them.

I just deleted all of them.

Last year I was listening to the overnight show on 2CC which was being relayed from Melbourne. There was a bushfire emergency at Geelong and the emergency siren came on. The same siren which came over the radio every few minutes while we were fighting off the flames in 2003. It brought back all those chilling memories of the 2003 bushfires.

Didn’t know about this bit

RiotFrog said :

“child bride” ?!?

My beloved wife

I don’t have any kind of anecdote from the day, except the memory of seeing burning houses as I drove to my sister’s house to rescue her shoes.

What I have noticed is that since then, at some point, the ESA decided to rewrite reality and added this tagline to their name:

“The trusted agency for emergency management in the ACT”

Which based on their track record, including this one, and major “insadents” since, would have to be the most arrogant and blatantly false claim I’ve seen. Yes, we trust the actual fireys and ambos, but I don’t believe many people would have much faith in the ESA’s management.