Black Saturday five days on
Before I was called out, we had been watching the conflagration
for several days, ears glued to the News Radio for further stories
in the dark. Ours was no Black Saturday which had engulfed
the mountains of my adolescent heartland, but a mere 9000 ha
of forest in Redmond over here in the West. 'Bornholm Fast Attack 1
to Bornholm Fast Attack 2, stick to the right down Hennings Road,
too many widow makers falling out of that forest, over.' The tall
jarrah forest was roaring at itself as we hovered and patrolled
in the thinly grassed paddock and the blanket of smoke, as the
back burn met the fire head and two towering walls of flame stood
high and face to face, whilst red tongues of fire burst out around us.
Near a derelict house a farmer stood on his round bales, bucket in
hand, etched out against the evening sun now red above the horizon,
whilst our pump motors on the trucks stood by, growling quietly
in the wait. It was a fire we could eventually leave to the next shift,
one that responded to the rules in the training manual. Back at home
the next morning, my lungs still stiff with smoke, my dirty uniform
hanging on the back veranda airing, hanging limply like a dead man,
I looked at my library, and the house fire breaks in need of a shave.
Should I do the fire plan, take a photograph of every shelf, or start
up the tractor? Victorian survivors had spoken of the guilt of living,
I felt the guilt of distance. Pioneer Oval at Marysville, where many
had gathered for security and safety, was where I had kicked a goal
against the stout mountain men in my youth, shared a beer afterwards
with the vanquished. How now the feeling of defeat? I kicked my
tractor into life and set the slasher to work, giving whole paddocks
a crew-cut, trying to keep busy to flatten the roaring images that
crashed into my mind, with the cutting blades and the seeming anger
of the motor. 'It sounded like ten Jumbo Jets taking off through the
forest above us.' This searing that killed simply by stealing the light
and burning up the air they needed. 'This here is where the windscreen
melted.' 'It was like they had been cremated in embrace.' From my
tractor I can see the nearby ocean clear and blue, but I could not see it.
You can't go back
Yesterday it was Woori-Yallock and Millgrove
and Warburton and Silvan. Driving through newly
established housing and