An episode and characters set in the Western District not far from Cobden.
The fire siren was still going full bore when I reached the station. People were collecting out the front. Through the window you could see Geoff Gronin, the fire chief and a fire-controller from out of town pouring over the huge coloured topography map on the wall. Ukay, Dennis, Bluey, Col Foster and Bernie Blackman were all listening attentively, heads cocked on one side, legs crossed and arms folded. They were all CFA members. There were different coloured pins stuck in a wide arc on red and black lines to the west of the town. Bertie, the communications Officer and Nudenut his 2-I-C were on the two-way radios and at the control panel. We could see them but we couldn’t hear them. But their faces were serious, eyes alert and there was an air of nervousness about them. Billy Hardy, a local with a front-end loader, dressed up in his yellow Volunteer Fire-brigade uniform stood at the door waiting. The Fire truck was idling. The reserve water truck too. And Jim Irwin’s, Roary’s, Johnno’s and Des Dugans’s trucks, Cliff Crawford’s and Dennis’ vans, Vinny’s moving-van, Chukka’s ute and Fred Nelson’s flat-top were all parked out the front with about twenty cars. There was a heap of old bags piled up beside a row of firefighting
knapsacks sitting in pools of water on the cement and a dripping hose from the tap in the corner. Several 40litre bins were stacked beside each other close by. Roary and Hawk were strapping some knapsacks to the fire truck. The rest of us hung around waiting to see what they wanted us to do. It was sort of quiet and serious. Faces grim, eyes narrowed.
“Looks pretty close,” says Geoffrey Wallace, Bluey’s old man, in from the farm.“Yeah,” replies Russell Dean, Manager of the factory.
CouncilorRaymond stood quietly next to Hughsey and Mick who worked as casuals at the factory. Even old Lindsay was there. Standing next to little Malcolm. And both whispering seriously as they waited. Johnno, who was First Aid Officer for the footy club, sat beside Dennis’ son Robbie who drove the ambulance. Doc Arnold was leaning on the back of it. Andrew Benjamin, dressed in a suit having been to some meeting or other, leaned on the front bonnet, arms folded. Both were silent as they watched the others- waiting to see what was wanted of them. Doc had brought in his nurse from the farm east of town where she lived. She was manning the outpatients at the hospital busily putting out bandages, liniment and other gear in anticipation of burns casualties.
Then the group at the map inside broke up and poured out the door. Billy and some of the CFA boys piled into the fire-truck and took off, their alarm screeching. Bernie and Col took the water-truck with Malcolm and Lindsay.
“Right you blokes, hop onto the trucks. Some of you grab the knapsacks - three to each trucks and a couple in the vans. The rest of you grab bags and bins and get onto the trucks.”
Geoff Gronin was in full flight.
“The CFA boys know where to go. Do what they tell you. The fire’s about 5k out of town. We’re going to set up a fire-line the other side of Broderick’s scrub.”
Andrew jumped into his car and headed for home to change. Doc took off back towards the hospital. We all sorted ourselves out and the convoy headed out west of town past Broderick’s scrub, trucks and vans peeling off onto bush tracks as they headed for their designated positions. Our group of vehicles pulled up in Broderick’s bottom paddock and we piled out. Bluey led us along a line about 300 metres from the Scrub dropping us off in twos about every 10metres. We stood on the edge of the paddock facing west across the bare strip of land about 500metres from the Crown land that followed the creek. The sky was bright orange making stark silhouettes of the brush and eucalypts. Every now and then you could see the flickering tops of flames as they engulfed a fresh patch of tinder. Still some distance from the bush.
We stood quietly with the hot wind in our faces. Some of us had fought the fires on Black Sunday and had an inkling of what was to happen. Those who didn’t stood expectantly waiting slipping glances at the people to their left and right. Wide-eyed glances that turned hurriedly away so that their fear would not be seen. Andrew, now dressed in overalls, dropped into place beside me grim-faced and eyes alert. He’d left his car down by the edge of the eastern end of the paddock. The line stretched for about half a kilometre to the right and left. Like a file of rifle-men ready for an impending enemy attack. Silent and set-lipped except for Bluey who was giving instructions what to do.
“Make sure your bag’s wet from the bins at back of you. You blokes with the knapsacks don’t waste your water. Aim at the seat of the flames
not at the flames themselves.”
So we waited.
To the north-west, about a kilometre along, the flames cracked into life and leapt to the sky gorging themselves on a patch of scrub. Like the devil’s fingers prodding the dark and curling back to a fist. That charcoal burning smell. Hot wind and bits of flying ash on the face. Adrenalins pumping. Waiting for Bluey to give the word. And still we waited. Nervous glances at each other. A cough here and there.
A “Shit! Look at that!” from Cookie who’d never fought a fire before, his voice loud with the wind. The fire crept its way southward along the scrub front coming nearer by the moment. I could see the flames jumping from dried cow-pat to dried cow-pat across the bare paddock after the wall of flame had passed.
“Let it burn itself out.” yells Bluey. “We’ll clean up after the main front passes.”
So we stood there in awe as the flames burnt closer and closer until they were in front of us. Hot. Bloody hot! The scrub crackled and hissed and popped and snapped.
“Cover your faces with your bags.” Bluey again.
“Shit!” yelled Longprong as an ember burnt into his jumper and he slapped at it. Amid the swirling smoke I could see the rest of the line hunched up under their bags. The flames seemed to be right on us. Except they were about 100metres away. Then silence. No-one spoke - except Bluey. No smart comments. No jokes to hide the fear. No nervous exclamations. Just the silence of the unknown and the unfamiliar - and awesome anticipation. Silence amid the wind and the distant crackle of the flames and the sudden explosions above the trees. Burning wood in our nostrils. Eyes smarting from hot winds. Wide-eyed, white-eyed, feardilated pupils. Tenseness of muscles and grim-jawed faces.
Then it eased off as the flames gobbled up the edge of the scrub in its path southward. The wind changed around to the north-east and the fire started to eat in on itself. The heat abated a little. A fire truck headed past us towards the southern end of the fire-line. The main body of the flames passed and headed back towards the creek leaving patches of burning scrub and smouldering cow-pats and tufts of grass chewed down to ground level - if it hit the vegetation at the edge of the creek it would get away and burn right past the factory and into the town. The truck disappeared into the night and the smoke.
“OK Let’s go to work.” Bluey led the way across the paddock to the burnt out scrub. In pairs and groups of threes we squirted and bagged. Hiss of water turning into steam. Thump of wet bags on small groups of flames and smouldering ash. “You blokes follow the fire along. You lot go back up along the scrub and make sure you put out the spot fires. You lot (and this included me) stay here and do this bit.”
Bluey was in full control and we did what he said. A different Bluey to the quiet bloke on our Golf trips.
Everything was black and gritty. And hot through our jumpers and stinging on our faces as the wind eddied and swirled the ash at us. The water truck passed and we dipped our bags into the 40litre drums and filled up the knapsacks.
“Big bugger wasn’t it,” pipes up little Malcolm.
Old Lindsay’s on the water truck with him.
“Not as big as Black Sunday.” Old Lindsay always had the last word.
The truck passed and we got back to the smouldering spots of bush still alight.
About an hour after Bluey declared “That’s it,” and we headed back to the trucks parked at the edge of Broderick’s paddock.
“G’day Ev.” Longprong was first back and first into the drinks and sandwiches laid out on the back of Johnno’s truck.
“You blokes a bit thirsty?” replied Ev as we straggled back in small groups.
“Bloody Oath!” Cookie’s still pumped up and wide-eyed.
Wilma Schiller and Maureen, Vinny’s Missus, handed out sandwiches and drinks waiting for the last of the group.
“That’ll do it.” She’s under control.” Bluey’s silhouette appeared out of the dark. “The watertruck’ll stay out here for a while. You blokes can probably head back. We’ll blow the siren if we need you again.”
He grabbed a sandwich and a drink and headed back into the night.
So we piled into the trucks and vans, still eating our sandwiches and drinking cordial, and headed into town to the Pub. There was no way we were going home just then. Even though we were pretty exhausted after the adrenalin had worn off and our muscles were stiff and sore from the bagging now that we’d cooled down.
***
Morning. The wind had dropped. Only a heat haze to the north and hot blue sky. A red glow to the north-east and black clouds to the south-east. To the west and heading south, black clouds and flames flickering in the distance. The outskirts of town were just the same as they’d been the day before. Rusty yellow and gray fence-lined patches bordered by green windbreaks of cypress and elms. Johannsen’s, Davis’s, Irwins, the piles of stone and sand at Black’s. All were intact. Houses and barns in corners of paddocks beside dams. Cows dotted over the landscape under eucalypts looking for shelter from the heat. Bush tracks and the creek at the back of the factory. The converter station beside the main road. Dust billowed and eddied from the red-dirt airstrip where two light planes were moored at the make-shift shed beside the old double-decker bus that the local Aero-club used as their clubrooms. The race track. The Secondary School. The huge butter-factory towering above the Co-op and the other main road leading out of town. The fourth green at the golf course was still as green. Everything was as it should have been.
***
We collected at the Golf Club the next day for a sort of post-mortem. The CFA and the CES had locked themselves away in their buildings to do the official evaluation of their responses. Some of them were still out in the paddocks and burnt out scrub about 10K west of town dealing with the spot fires (one jumped up beside the huge old gum just south of the factory and the siren rang again. Trucks and men pounced on it before it got away - would have burnt itself out, there was little tinder in the area, but we were toey enough to make sure. Twenty men belting away at an area not much bigger than a haystack - it was over in about a minute. This was the closest the fire got to town.
The stories flowed. But not in exaggerated tones. There was no need to embellish. Most of them were serious and told in low voices to others with concerned faces. Old Ernie Cummings burnt to death trying to save his goats. Ches Roberts, the local muso in hospital with burns and a heart attack after his house burnt to the ground in front of him - his piano and saxaphone gone with the rest of his belongings.
Jim Watson dead out in the paddock, his horse standing over him - and the cattle he’d been herding strewn around the place and beside the dam - smoke affected fresians, standing beside the bloated bodies of the not so lucky, mooing plaintively in the hot black paddocks. Old Mrs Flemming boiled unrecognisable in the bathtub amid the burnt-out remains of her weatherboard on the edge of the forest. Haystacks gone. Feed gone. Scrub gone. The sanctuary black and ghostly in the smoke of after-burn, scorched defoliated tree trunks and dead roos and koala bears. The ranger’s hut nothing but ashes, it’s red-brick chimney the only recognisable remains. The community hall at Tucker’s Creek nothing but a scorched cement slab above the septic tank. Eric Van Beuren’s ute piled up a telephone post beyond repair and Eric wandering around
with his arm in plaster. The burnt out shell of Greg Turner’s four-wheeler beside the dam where he’d escaped the flames out the back of his farm. And, on the lighter side, Simmo walking down the street leading his horse - both of them covered in effluent from the sewerage plant just out of town. Seems he was out that way when the cloud came down and he thought it best to get in, in case the fire was behind it.
The McDermott brothers up on the school Gymnasium trying to repair the roof before school started the next day. Sheets of tin seen flying over the fourth green of the nearby golf course by people scurrying back to their homes as the red-black cloud bore down on them. Old Frank Unwin and his boy trying to kickstart the old Austin fire-truck, succeeding and watching it take off down the hill and into the ditch beside the cement works. Seems they couldn’t catch up when the boy jumped from the cabin (because his old man had slipped and was lying on the road) knocking the truck into gear. Knocker Morrison on his motorbike, carrying sandwiches and drinks out along the paddocks to the firelines, not quite jumping the irrigation channel (‘but close - real close, only a wheel’s length in it’ as he walked it back with a snapped chain, the two kilometres to the nearest farm house). The stories were endless. Some funny, some sad.
Some personal, some about what they’d heard, some they thought had happened but weren’t quite sure because everything had happened so quickly. But all told with the gravity and seriousness befitting the situation.
The bar trade was good all day. And Doc and Andrew were kept very busy in the weeks that followed as people licked their wounds and looked to compensation from their insurance companies.