Miracles and Setbacks

Australia’s Disastrous Spring/Summer of Bushfires

The sunset on December 10th had glorious rays of light beaming down on my backyard. Dark clouds lined with silver seemed like the hand of God smiling on us. I prayed for rain. It didn’t come. A dry thunder storm started 5 fires through lightning strikes instead.

My Christmas wish was for rain to put out the fires.

With 2 blazes still on and around our property, I didn’t get my wish.

There was a heap of water from the sky though.

Small miracle 1: A water bombing helicopter flew over and back, over and back repeatedly on Christmas Day. I thought it was the usual aircraft making a fire surveillance run; I’ve never felt so happy to be wrong.

The copter that delivered on the world’s favourite holiday cost over $10000 an hour to run, and stayed water bombing for hours. Once I realised, I ran outside and waved. Over-excited like a little kid on Christmas morning; I waved to the water bomber. Crying happy tears, it was as if I’d never seen anything so wonderful as that big chopper putting out our closest bushfire.

Small miracle 2: There was meant to be severe thunderstorms on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. They didn’t eventuate. Five separate lightning strikes were responsible for the four fires we’ve had since. So good we didn’t get another dry electrical storm to start new fires.

Small miracle 3: I’m a chronic asthmatic who’s had trouble breathing with thick smoke haze from nearby fires. There are no fires to the west. We had fresh, clear air and blue sky for Christmas Day. A westerly wind blew away smoke and ash clouds. It was good to go out without a face mask.

A westerly wind clears the sky of haze and I can breathe the air.

Small miracle 4: The December heatwave that gave us scorching temperatures of 42 degrees C, or 107.6 F, eased a little. The mercury rose to 30 Christmas Day, but it didn’t kill you to be outside.

There were no strong winds to spread embers and spark new blazes either. We’d had gales with 60 kph gusts all through November, but Christmas weather was milder.

Small miracle 5: My husband put the first lightning fire out on his own. He put the second out with the help of his brother. I look out my windows to see the third fire across the valley. It’s where the man I married has spent all the days and half the nights fighting a fire.

He needed a break from bulldozing containment lines and roads to access the steep fire front. Two weeks in heavy protective clothing had him dehydrated and overheated. He had a few hours off on Christmas Day, but it was a real miracle we got him to stop at all.

Small miracle 6: Consumed with worry about losing my home and everything I owned 26 years after the first time it happened, it hasn’t happened again. I had lovely breakfast with home made croissants and sweet wine. I had pre-dinner cocktails before a scrumptious roast turkey.

I received all the gifts I’d asked for except rain. My daughter gave me a glass hummingbird she had made in Germany. I was grateful to still have our home and family intact; plus a whole lot happier than I ever expected to be.

The hummer from Berlin Christmas Markets my daughter gave to me.

Setback 1: After the first week of fire on the biggest mountain on our property, I asked my husband if they could send in water bombers. He said no. I cried when he told me we weren’t important enough. Not a large enough population on farmland, not enough homes to save to be worth the expense.

Our third fire was burning 1622 hectares, or 16.6 square miles, and it wasn’t considered big enough. Not a mega blaze in a National Park or near a city like Sydney. He was told they simply didn’t have the resources.

I kept hoping, watching the windows for aircraft flying over. When they did, it was always a plane monitoring the situation from the sky; a craft with no Bambi buckets to help with the fire situation. It was damn disappointing. That’s why a helicopter working on the world’s favourite holiday seemed like a miracle.

The blanket of grey fire smoke and soot went for a km along our mountain ridge.

Setback 2: If you can see a disaster happening it’s tricky not to obsess about it. I saw thick, choking smoke every day for weeks. The fire mountain is straight out the windows and glass doors. I saw a long red snake trail of blazes glowing every night for a fortnight. I couldn’t not see them when I moved from one room to another. It made my stomach churn. I was weeping all the time, paranoid the worst would happen again.

You can’t ignore fires in your face, you can’t resist the urge to watch smoke plumes billowing, or find the flames through binoculars every other hour. Over time it wears you down.

Setback 3: Fire number 4 threatened and it could have been the worst yet. My husband stayed out until almost midnight minding the inferno in erratic winds that kept changing directions. He saw fire leap through groves of a native eucalypt forest, burning scrub that has never been cleared.

With over 30 km of inaccessible mountains with a million years of leaf litter, bark, branches and dead tree stumps to act as fuel it was unpredictable. Once started, who could tell where it would stop, or if it could be stopped at all?

Okay now, it was out of control for 18 days. My husband had a vested interest in controlling this fire 5 km off our property. If it got away the only road out would be cut off and no help could get in to save us or our wonderful neighbours.

Around midnight, my man saw his New Year’s Eve fireworks a day early. They were all red and as volatile as gelignite. Home late and exhausted each night, he’d go back out there at 6 the next morning.

Those 2 large bushfires are under control now. He reassures me he is safe, but I fret until I hear him coming up the driveway again.

It is harrowing, as if he’s going off to war every day.

Setback 4: We’ve had 40 months without decent rainfall. The worst drought the country has endured; our fourth summer in a row without rain.

Australia is on fire, over 7 million hectares have been burnt out. So far 2000 homes have been razed and thousands more are damaged. We are urged not to go on holidays because highways are closed or too dangerous to drive on.

Smoke haze at 10 am, good thing is I can’t see the mountain on fire through it.

Last spring was the driest on record in the driest continent on earth. There’s been 3 heatwaves in 3 weeks. Last year was Australia’s hottest since records started 120 years ago. Air quality is worse than Beijing, so bad that the kangaroos who come to drink are sick and coughing.

It can look like the end of the world out there.

Global warming has made Australia too hot and too dry.

Climate change is real, and it’s happening here on the farm now.