Kinglake-350

by Adrian Hyland

  The Royal Commission’s recommendations mostly depended on government action: burying power lines, increasing prescribed burns, creating community refuges, instituting a stronger emphasis on warnings and a more unified approach to fire management. These outcomes may affect some of our thinking for a time. But they’ll be worth precious little if they do not also change us, heart and soul, in the way that music or art or raw emotion can change us—if they are not accompanied by a fundamental shift in attitude, one that stretches from the halls of power to the family weekender in the bush.

  There are many things we can do as individuals to reduce risk: develop a fire plan, join the CFA, install a pump or a bunker, organise a local fireguard group. We need to assess our own situations, understand the risks, remove them if we can, remove ourselves if we can’t. More than anything else, we need to educate ourselves. But some things are beyond the powers of any one person.

  Consider, as an example, the question of arson. We have a critical problem in our midst and it’s not going away any time soon. Even in the summer of 2009–10, after all the devastation and despair the state had witnessed, some 750 fires were deliberately lit across the state.

  If you were to ask the average resident of the burnt-out areas what to do about firebugs, the answer would probably include hempen rope and good strong branches. The very word tends to raise the hackles, and understandably so: that some whacko could deliberately inflict such trauma upon his fellow creatures just about defies belief.

  But a response based purely upon the desire for retribution will simply not work. Arson is a manifestation of complex societal problems, and it can only be resolved by society-wide responses—a comprehensive program, for example, targeting at-risk communities and supported by all relevant agencies: fire and mental health services, police, justice and social welfare. The teacher delivering after-school programs or the youth worker providing interventional counselling will arguably have more impact on the prevention of arson than a fleet of fire trucks.

  Perhaps there is also a case to be made for a more interventionist legal approach. South Australia has an apparently successful program called Operation Nomad in which known, or even suspected, arsonists receive close police attention on blow-up days. Victoria has recently introduced a program called Operation Firesetter, which will increase police patrols in fire-prone areas, although it doesn’t appear to be as proactive as its South Australian counterpart in that the cops don’t go banging on suspects’ doors. Some commentators go further, suggesting that surveillance aids such as electronic bracelets should be mandatory for anybody with a history, even a suspected history, of arson.

  There is a debate here that we need to take on. Both approaches raise questions about civil liberties, about infringements of an individual’s legal rights. That we are innocent until proven guilty is one of the foundations of our legal system. But legal rights must seem the flimsiest of apparitions to a parent watching her family die by fire.

  Another example of wider thinking that offers a promising lesson for the future comes from a small community near Castella, in the heavily timbered eastern part of the ranges. By rights, the twenty or so houses near Castella shouldn’t still be standing. They were struck by fire as intense as most other places in the ranges, and yet they survived.

  How did they avoid the general destruction? It was a combination of factors. In the first place, the DSE had carried out carefully targeted burns, totalling around 450 hectares, in the years before Black Saturday. But just as importantly, the community was actively involved in its own defence. There was a strong fireguard group, so the residents were there to inform and support each other. Two farms in particular were well prepared: they had cattle grazing right up to their houses and four-wheel-drives with mounted fire-fighting units. When the fire came they fought collectively, as a community, and they won.

  Whether this modest example can provide a model for society is a big question. The broader scenario is of course much more complex; there will always be a range of individuals with different levels of experience and knowledge; governments will come and go, their priorities often determined by factors that appear to have little to do with rural Australia. But surely it is a question we have to tackle. The consequences of not doing so are too serious to ignore, and the thousands of Melburnians who had a close escape on February 7 might not be so lucky next time.

  If there’s a glimmer of light in the terrible story of Black Saturday, it emanates from the dozen or so individuals featured in this book— and not from them alone, for there were thousands of others like them. Coppers racing around trying to save lives; firies scrambling on foot in the moonlight to reach endangered properties, forcing their chainsaw blades into one more tree; women who put aside their own suffering to help rebuild the community. Most moving of all, the parents who sacrificed themselves in the attempt to save their children.

  These deeds are testament, all, to the power of the human spirit. We can do amazing things when we see a need. There is a need now. If we can turn that fitful glimmer onto our future, if we can absorb something of its energy, then there’ll be a way forward. We may acquire the strength to make decisions, the sense to take precautions, the wisdom to develop, like the Warlpiri, fire ceremonies of our own.

  If we do those things, then 173 souls will not have died in vain.

  If we fail to, there will be many more to join them.

  It is a cool night in August, 2010. Many residents of Kinglake are enjoying the deepest laugh they’ve had all year as they gather to watch Paydirt, a rattling musical comedy written by Ross Buchanan. It is the ultimate bravura performance, a heart-rending manifestation of the healing power of art and music.

  A few metres from the hall, the bush is stirring. Tendrils twist and creep, triffid-like, buds are bursting, seeds are responding with astonishing alacrity to the twin forces of fire and water. The growth this year has a wild profusion most observers have never seen.

  ‘Looks like an oil slick to me now,’ comments firefighter Di MacLeod as she surveys the lush new growth. ‘Year or two, the fire threat’ll be worse than ever.’

  In millions of homes across the country, residents switch off the television, adjust the air con, kill the lights and slip into bed. Some on the fringes of the city might spare a thought for the looming summer and its threats, but few will do much about it.

  Really, what are the odds?

  UPDATE

  A quick survey of some of the individuals who have contributed their stories to this book:

  Drew Barr and Ange O’Connor stayed with their in-laws in nearby Cottles Bridge. They briefly considered moving to Queensland, but decided they were too close to the community to leave it, and purchased a house in nearby Wattle Glen. Like a lot of survivors, Drew found his brush with death made him reassess his goals in life. He resigned from the superannuation industry and is undertaking a permaculture design course. Drew has joined the CFA. ‘We realise we were incredibly lucky to survive,’ says Ange, ‘but we can’t undo the girls’ trauma.’

  Tim and Linda Huggins remain in Kinglake, where the newspaper Tim edits, the Mountain Monthly, has become an important local voice. ‘Still on the warrior path,’ he says wryly—he recently added a sixth Australian tae kwon do title to his collection—but the words have assumed a new dimension for him in the wake of the fire.

  Di MacLeod resigned from her position with an import business. ‘They just didn’t understand,’ she says. ‘Within three days of the fire, they were ringing me up saying, “When can you come back to work?” While we were still out fighting fires!’ After a period of unemployment, she obtained a job in the local childcare centre. She is undertaking a degree in counselling.

  Phil Petschel purchased a new house in Kinglake. He’s found it hard to get used to having neighbours after the splendid isolation of Bald Spur Road, but he’s doing okay. Two years down the track, Carole Wilson and Trish Hendrie remain in temporary accommodation, while Ben Hutchinson has recently
completed his new house. All remain active members of the CFA, as do John Grover, Frank Allan, Karen Barrow, Karyn Norbury, Paul Lowe and Dave Hooper. Karyn Norbury is at present the captain of the Kinglake West CFA; her family and farm survived. Kelly Johnson has gone to university, where she is studying international development; she has spent time working as a volunteer in the third world.

  The CFA brigades have had a small increase in their number of volunteers, but no more than that: members are still reduced to standing around at markets with collection tins in hand to raise the funds they need to carry out their vital role.

  Tony Fitzgerald suffered a number of health problems after the fire, something he suspects was due to the stress of the disaster. His situation was aggravated by a local resident’s complaint that his last-ditch backburn added to the intensity of the fire. He had to live with that hanging over his head for a year, but his actions were completely vindicated by forensic fire scientists at the Royal Commission. He still works as a ranger, but has decided to take a break from the stressful fire-management aspect of the job. He and his family have purchased a house in the nearby suburb of Hurstbridge.

  Aaron Redmond remains a member of the DSE crew. While some of his colleagues resigned after the fire, Aaron found it a life-changing experience of a different kind. He plans to enhance his skills and training in the field of fire management. (Like much else in Kinglake, the fire was something of a family affair. Aaron’s mother is Kerrie Redmond, the CFA volunteer who helped save Drew and Ange; Jane Hayward, the Strathewen school principal, is his aunt.)

  Wendy Duncan made a strong recovery from her injuries and returned to her legal practice, but has left the community. She now lives on the south coast, where she shares a house with her rescuer, Lorraine Casey.

  Mike Nicholls has left the region to take up a new position as Professor of Psychology at Flinders University in South Australia.

  Cameron Caine threw himself into the recovery effort and emerged as one of the community leaders. Particularly important was his role as president of the Football and Netball Club. He returned to the team himself, booted some sixty goals and in that first season saw the Lakers through to the grand final. His days were filled with furious activity, but his nights were haunted by images of the fires. Finally he was forced to take time off the job. He stood as a candidate in the 2010 federal election; he didn’t win, but did use the campaign as a platform to speak out on behalf of the bushfire victims. At the time of writing he has returned to active duty as a senior constable at the Kinglake police station.

  Roger Wood underwent the operation on his neck at the Epworth Hospital in February 2010. Everything went well. After a slow, painful recuperation period, he returned to work on light duties in June 2010 and was fully operational by October.

  In November 2010 both Wood and Caine—along with the other four officers mentioned in this narrative, Gary Tickell, Paul Kemezys, Alex Barron and John Liddell—were awarded Police Valour Medals for their actions on Black Saturday.

  NOTES

  FIRE PLAN

  Fire plan figures are from Whittaker and Handmer.

  ARSON

  Most of the information on is from a Monash University (Melbourne) symposium called ‘Collaborating for change: Symposium advancing bushfire arson prevention in Australia’.

  Specifically: Maclean, A. (2000:11) Wildfire arson in Victoria: Analysis of crime patterns to assist the development of specific prevention and enforcement strategies. Unpublished, University of Melbourne. Cited in: Cozens, P. (2010) Overview: Environmental criminology and the potential for reducing bushfire arson.

  A report by A. Tomison: Bushfire arson: Setting the scene.

  Additional information concerning arson from the report of the symposium, entitled: Advancing Bushfire Arson Prevention in Australia, edited by Janet Stanley and Tahl Kestin, MSE Report 10/3, June 2010. Monash University, Monash Sustainability Institute.

  Statistics on arson rates among CFA members are from Danielle Clode, A Future in Flames. The information on arsonists’ motivations is from Janet Stanley and Tahl Kestin, quoted in Clode.

  RED FLAG

  Stephen Pyne, Burning Bush, p. 38.

  Clive Countryman, Fire Whirls, Why, When, and Where, p. 7.

  Quote from William Kininmonth obtained in conversation.

  SURVIVAL ARC

  Disaster stories, and the quote from Gordon Gallup, taken from Amanda Ripley, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why.

  Percentage of victims who perished in the bath from Whittaker and Handmer, Review of Key Bushfire Research Findings.

  The London tube story and the quote from Massad Ayob are both from Ripley.

  SNAPSHOTS

  John Handmer quoted in the Age: ‘Most fire victims fail to prepare’ by Karen Kissane, April 28, 2010.

  FIRE: AN ILUMINATED HISTORY

  Stephen Pyne, Fire: A Brief History.

  The major study mentioned in para 2 is Davidson, Close and Jones, The Decline of the Eucalypt.

  John Stokes: Discoveries in Australia… p. 228.

  Rhys Jones, ‘Fire-stick farming’.

  Ernest Giles, Australia Twice Traversed, p. 111.

  The Arnhem Land elder is Yibarbuk, quoted in Phil Zylstra, Fire History of the Australian Alps.

  A. P. Elkin also quoted in Zylstra.

  Banks quoted in Pyne, Burning Bush, p. 150.

  Zylstra, Fire History, p. 26.

  Robert Clode is quoted in Paul Collins, Burn, p. 55.

  Pyne, Burning Bush, p. 224; the quote from D. M. Thompson is on p. 208.

  Old timer quoted in Eric Rolls, A Million Wild Acres, p. 247.

  Information from Neil Davidson obtained in conversation, February 2011.

  Figures on the social impact of bushfire trauma from Catherine Caruana’s article in Family Matters, ‘Picking up the Pieces’.

  Demographic information from Chen and McAneney, pp. 1–4. Phil Cheney quoted inDanielle Clode, A Future in Flames.

  SAVING PEOPLE

  Samuel Oliner quoted in Ripley, p. 189.

  BUSHFIRE BRAIN

  Stella Reid quoted in Jim Usher and Mac Gudgeon, Footsteps in the Ashes, p. 67.

  Paul Valent’s quote is from an article by Karen Kissane, ‘Embers of pain stir in young hearts’, Age, January 5, 2011.

  A REFLECTION

  ‘CFA chief Russell Rees resigns’, Age, April 23, 2010.

  CSIRO modelling on fire-prone days forecast is from Bushfire Weather, Lucas, Hennessy et al.

  Age, November 20, 2010, p. 14.

  Castella information obtained in conversation with DSE ranger Tony Fitzgerald.

  REFERENCES

  Australian Bureau of Meteorology (2008) Climate of Australia, Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne.

  Caruana, C., ‘Picking up the Pieces: Family Functioning in the Aftermath of Natural Disaster’, Family Matters, no. 84, 2010.

  Chen, K. and McAneney J., ‘Quantifying Bushfire Penetration into Urban Areas of Australia’, Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 31, no. L12212, 2004, pp. 1–4.

  Clode, D. (2010) A Future in Flames, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne. Collins, P. (2009) Burn: The Epic Story of Bushfire in Australia, Scribe, Melbourne.

  Colls, K. and Whittaker, R. (1993) The Australian Weather Book, National, Brookvale, NSW.

  Countryman, C. (1971) Fire Whirls, Why, When, and Where, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, US Forest Service Berkeley, Calif.

  Davidson, Close and Jones, ‘The Decline of the Eucalypt’, Fire Update, no. 20, May 2007, Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre.

  De Villiers, Marq (2006) Windswept: The Story of Wind and Weather, Walker and Company, New York.

  Giles, E. (1889) Australia Twice Traversed: the Romance of Exploration, Being a Narrative Compiled from the Journals of Five Exploring Expeditions into and through Central Australia and Western Australia from 1872 to 1876, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, London.

&
nbsp; Hunter, J. to the Duke of Portland, June 10, 1797, in Historical Records of New South Wales, 1797, vol. 3, p. 220.

  Johns, David (2009) A Day Like No Other, D. & B. Johns, Kinglake.

  Jones, R., ‘Fire-stick farming’, Australian Natural History, September 1969. Kissane, K. (2010) Worst of Days, Hachette Australia, Sydney.

  Latz, P. (2007) The Flaming Desert: A Fire-shaped Landscape, Peter Latz, Alice Springs.

  Linacre, E. and Geerts, B. (1997) Climates and Weather Explained, Routledge, London and New York.

  Lucas, C., Hennessy, K., Mills, G., Bathols, J. (2007) Bushfire Weather in Southeast Australia: Recent Trends and Projected Climate Change Impacts, Bushfire CRC.

  Luke, R. and McArthur, A. (1986) Bushfires in Australia, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra.

  Mitchell, T. L. (1848) Journey of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia in Search of a Route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria, Longman, Brown, Green, London.

  Mountain Monthly Cooperative Ltd (2009) In Our Own Words, Kinglake.

  Pyne, S. (1982) Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.

  —— (1991) Burning Bush: A Fire History of Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.

  —— (1997) Vestal Fire: An Environmental History, Told through Fire, of Europe and Europe’s Encounter with the World, University of Washington Press, Seattle.

  —— (2001) Fire: A Brief History, British Museum, London.

  Ripley, A. (2008) The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why, Random House, Sydney.

  Rolls, E. (1984) A Million Wild Acres, Penguin Books, Ringwood.

  Schultz, D. (ed.) Fire on the Savannas: Voices from the Landscape, Tropical Savannas CRC, Darwin, 1988.

  Stokes, J. (1846) Discoveries in Australia with an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed during the Voyage of HMS Beagle in the Years 1837–38–39–40–41–42–43, T. & W. Boone, London.