by ToClark
Chapter 5
“The Lord said a fire, not a flood next time”
The 2013–14 Australian bushfire season was predicted to have above average fire potential for most states including portions of the north west of Western Australia, the north west of the Northern Territory and large areas of central Queensland following below average rainfall and above average temperatures in these areas in the months leading up to the fire season.[1] The year 2013 was the hottest on record in Australia, with the average temperature from September 2012 to August 2013 being calculated to be 22.9 °C (73 °F) which is 1.1 °C (1.6 °F) higher than the 1961 to 1990 average.
Source: Wikipedia.
Just North of Sydney, Cristobel and Nigel were feeling much the same, only with an alarmingly more imminent and greater sense of urgency. A ferociously hot summer had presaged an ever earlier bushfire season and now it seemed that their entire world was about to be consumed by a threatening inferno that was just over the horizon. Without a car, they had no means to flee the darkening skies and in any case had no idea in which direction it would be safe to do so. They had gathered their few belongings into backpacks in preparation to leave the hostel they had been staying at, realising with horror that just about everyone else had already departed. It looked as though the whole suburb was about to be engulfed by the monster that was bearing down on them.
They had been left behind.
The smell of smoke was terrifying and now they were being rained on by fine ash and dust. Flames were visible in the distance. They were caught between a panicky flight and frozen immobility because the fire seemed to be advancing on all sides of them. A hot dry wind was picking up, lifting dry leaves and bits of twigs to mix in with an airborne swirl that bizarrely carried an empty crisp packet and a torn front page of ‘The Australian’ with a picture of a bush fire on it.
Christobel noticed the headline as it caught against a branch of a nearby eucalyptus tree “Blue Gums exploding in flames…”
The heat was getting unbearable. Soot mixing with the sweat on Nigel’s face had run into a grimy tear that had made a smeary trace from his brow down to his chin. Her hair, clinging and sticking sweatily to her own face smelt hot and the dreadful thought that it was about to catch alight only added to her sense of impending horror and a rising terror that they were going to be burnt alive.
“We’ve got to run for it” His voice was hoarse, throat painfully dry. He grabbed her arm. “Now!”
She let him lead her down the entry way and on to the road outside only then it was choice of left or right across the advancing fireline. With appalling clarity Christobel knew that they would not make it. There was nowhere to run and only the kerbside to lie against as a hopeless gesture of protection from the all-engulfing inferno. A billowing wall of smoke was rolling towards them, lifting burning brands and glowing fragments in its maw.
It was the fire truck that saved them. The crew were making a final sweep, looking for survivors before falling back to the next fire break. As they were being half-dragged on board she saw several panic stricken wallabies hopping by.
A very Antipodean voice called out “Got ‘em, Chief. Now lets’ get the hell out!”
Ten minutes later they were safe in a mercifully cool, air conditioned school building that was being used as a temporary rest centre. Nigel had retreated to the washroom to douse himself with cold water and then throw up into the basin. He had never before been so frightened and he was still trembling violently with reaction and shock.
But they were safe, mercifully rescued in the nick of time from an almost certain and dreadful death and it was all his fault, he realised. He should never have taken his delicate, beautiful, young and, yes, vulnerable, partner to such a dangerous place. He had ignored the ever more alarming news bulletins and casually disregarded the injunctions for people to move away from danger areas and listen out for situation updates. By being so lackadaisical he had put his beloved Cristobel’s life on the line as well as his own and all in the name of an adventure holiday. Remorse washed over him, he found himself crying uncontrollably, holding on to the sanitary porcelain with hands that still shook uncontrollably lest he actually collapse on to the floor.
But they were safe! They had been saved. Others were not so lucky that day, that week. By the time the fires had eventually burned themselves out the death toll had claimed nearly two hundred souls.
‘Yes’ he realised grimly ‘they had been luckier than he deserved. They had survived. Exhausted physically and emotionally but still in possession of their belongings, and especially their travel documents and visas so that they could move on unhindered.’ He decided that they would go to the Sunshine Coast up Brisbane way and safety, to lay over and recuperate until the season moved on into autumn. They could make plans then but now it was time to take things easy and get over the trauma they had just experienced.
Nigel was finally growing up.
“The 2014–15 Australian bushfire season is expected to be have the potential for many fires in eastern Australia after lower than expected rainfall being received in many area. Bushfire authorities released warnings in the early spring that the season could be particularly bad.
Warmer and drier weather conditions were experienced during winter and are expected to extend into 2015, due to a developing El Niño event. Sydney was on track to record its hottest autumn on record and only had one fifth of the average rainfall in May. Adelaide recorded sixteen consecutive days of 20 °C (68 °F) in May 2014.
Queensland sweltered through a heatwave with record October temperatures being set in many towns through the state”
Source Wikipedia
"Extreme." "Unprecedented." "Historic." Those are just a few of the words being used to describe the start of this year's fire season in North America.
The wildfires are centred in the northwest of the continent, but their consequences are far-reaching. Thick smoke has blanketed parts of Wisconsin and North Dakota. It's triggered air alerts in Minnesota and Montana and muddied skies as far south as Tennessee and Colorado.
Source NPR News, Canada July 11 2015
While 10.9% of the world’s population of 7.33 billion persons were undernourished by 2015, according to the statistics of the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the USA), the Great Famine did not officially begin until the effects of global warming began to erode the world farming community’s ability to maintain existing levels. Inevitably, the most vulnerable regions and especially the Horn of Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa began to suffer most.
The rains had failed for a third consecutive year. Food had become scarce, overwhelmed relief organisations had been unable to distribute enough to succour the population. Bandits and regional warlords fought and squabbled over ever-shrinking supplies. Starving people fled into the bush to escape the horrors of internecine fighting that couldn’t even be dignified by the title of a ‘civil war’. There were tribal skirmishes in plenty, and almost as many Kalashnikovs and other assault rifles as there were sacks of rice to be fought over. It was not even genocide, it was simply the disintegration of civil society.
Little Lilonghi, little more than a child herself cradled the baby, rocking it in her arms. Her common-law husband Manny looked on in helpless despair as they huddled under the ramshackle palm frond roof of the open-sided kraal that did no more than keep the sun off. She was skin and bones, like himself. The ragged remains of the dress that she had once been so proud of hung loosely to her otherwise naked emaciated body. Manny was so weak from hunger that he no longer had the strength to try to forage for anything that might give them sustenance, instead squatting apathetically on his haunches, too feeble even to go for water. This of itself required a long trudge to a drying up muddy water hole to fill a bucket with a filthy, insect-infested brown liquid in competition with equally desperate and emaciated cattle and other animals, themselves exhausted with hunger but still dangerous in their extremis of nee
d.
There were no longer other people around foraging. The last time he had gone there, he was the only person left. The other people must have found a better place further away he had thought dully. Either that or they had all died.
He knew that Lilonghi’s baby was dead. The poor little scrap had not even been blessed with a name and it scarcely mattered now whether it had been a boy or a girl. Sometime soon, he would have to go to her and take the remains of her child from her. He would not have the strength left even to dig a shallow scrape to inter the remains in. He would only be able to carry it out of its mother’s sight and lay it down in a little hollow he knew of and there the vultures or some other scavenger would pick it to pieces.
