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Batemans Bay bushfires: a narrative
This is different to my usual postings: a bit of a mental cleansing to get the memories out of my head. I've posted photos of Australian native wildlife, as more than a billion animals died during those horrific fires.
Pre-shock shock
Gazing in horrified shock at the devastation wreaked on beautiful Murramarang National Park with its green eucalypt woodlands, coastal views and sightings of kangaroos and wallabies, I little realised in a few days’ time I would be witnessing the same destruction on friends’ property in Batemans Bay: charred trees stinking of burnt vegetation, bare ashy ground and everywhere the buzzing of flies.
An Australian bushfire is fierce, unpredictable and merciless. It burns through undergrowth, meaning the wildlife has, if it survives, nowhere to hide from its introduced predators, foxes and cats. Burnt eucalypts don’t topple: they stand as black sooty sentinels dropping dead brown leaves on the scorched earth below. In these landscapes, there are no birds moving through the foliage, no wallabies peeping from behind bushes, no lizards scuttling through the undergrowth. Just lots of flies.
We had made a side trip to the national park on our way to Batemans Bay to see the extent of the damage and were saddened by how much of it had been burnt. Brave firefighters had managed to salvage the small communities of Depot Beach and North Durras where shellshocked kangaroos huddled on patches of fresh green grass and kids scampered in and out of the lovely lagoons and ocean.
At least the areas of bushland north of Batemans Bay around North Durras and the township itself were okay, we reassured ourselves.
Pre-shock fun
For the next couple of days, we enjoyed our time on the south coast of NSW, staying with our friends Sarah and Neil and their sweet golden terrier-cross, Jackson, on their lovely bushland block with its sugar gliders and diversity of bird species, eating fresh seafood, walking on the beaches and relaxing. Other friends were there too: Paul and Jan, and Barry, all great people.
The night before New Year’s Eve, we stayed up late dancing to youtube videos, drinking wine and having a good time.
Pre-shock disruption
6.30 am, New Year’s Eve: I was fast asleep in bed when Matt’s voice intruded on my slumbers. “Get up,” he said.
I opened one eye. “Whahhh?”
“You have to get up. We have to evacuate.”
Behind him, my friend Sarah’s voice sounded, sounding frightened. “Please get up,” she said.
Matt advised me to look at my phone and sure enough, there was a text message from the Rural Fire Service instructing me to leave immediately and seek safe shelter.
I got my things together in a bleary-eyed daze. Sarah and Neil were busy packing their computers, sound system and valuables in their car and making sure Jackson had everything he needed. Matt was drinking coffee and talking with our other friends. I could smell smoke in the air.
When I went outside to pack my things in the car, smoke had obliterated the sky although visibility was still good. On the road up from the driveway, sirens squealed and lights flashed as emergency service vehicles screamed up and down.
I packed half a dozen bottle of wine. I felt we would need it.
We drove in a small convoy, following other vehicles to the evacuation centre, a small sports centre in the middle of a large field next to a beach. There were still some spaces in the huge car park.
Once we got out of the car and looked back in the direction of our friends’ house, we were stunned to see the sky was an inferno and the hills were dark although it was only seven o’clock in the morning. The air reeked of smoke and a hot howling gale whipped trees and people alike. A flock of seagulls circled against a backdrop of roiling grey and deep orange.
We agreed we had never seen anything like it. I started to feel frightened.
Still, life had to go on. We climbed up the stairs to the evacuation centre, a smallish room full of people where most chairs were already taken. There was toast and butter, cereal and coffee. We had some breakfast and stood out on the verandah facing the beach where the air was better and we could see the edges of the smoke, the sky verging abruptly from leaden grey to cerulean.
Once Sarah and Neil had stood in a long queue to register us all for emergency accommodation, we stood around talking. Sarah and I walked Jackson on the path leading to the beach but the wind was so fierce we could not move against it and had to turn back.
One of Sarah’s neighbours approached her and said she was worried about her husband who had stayed behind to fight the fires. As we walked on, her husband turned up. a soot-strewn pale-faced man in firefighting gear who said: ‘I’m sorry love, I stayed until the power went out and it was too hot to stand. I don’t think we’ll have a house to go back to.”
Sarah’s poor neighbour burst into tears, and she and her husband embraced. We moved away to give them privacy and were accosted by a woman representing pet welfare from the government who ensured Jackson had enough food for the day and gave us a bowl for his water.
At the evacuation centre, more people had arrived and the smoke had thickened. Inside, the noise of agonised conversations rose to a crescendo and tear-streaked faces filled the room as people found out through phone calls that their homes had been destroyed. Dogs and their owners, and tourists with cameras, congregated on the verandahs. One ashen-faced man stroked a golden Labrador and obviously wished he could be anywhere but here.
Matt and I walked along the main road to Batehaven where ducks swam on wetland ponds and emergency vehicles screamed by. It was still windy and the air stank of burning so we turned and came back, spotting a small grass fire near the beach. Matt decided to go and film the shore where campers who had been evacuated from a nearby caravan park stood or sat aimlessly, unsure of what to do.
I filled my water bottle in the kitchen of the evacuation centre, and then, given one of the volunteers was giving a speech, stayed to listen.
She told us there was no emergency accommodation available but that the basketball court was open to sleep in! The Catalina Club, a large social club, had opened and could provide fresh water.
I found my friends. We had a confab and decided to join Sarah in the café then go on to the Catalina Club.
By now it was very hot due to the fires and the smoke, and my mobile phone had died. I called Matt on Paul’s Telstra phone and told him to join us in the café.
Sarah was sitting in the pleasant outdoor area of the café facing the beach, quite overcome as the owners had given her a free coffee. Barry treated me to a flat white and we sat enjoying the ambience. Matt did not turn up and the café’s owner said the grass fire on the beach had spread but there was still nothing much to be concerned about.
I did worry about Matthew though, even more so when I tried to reach him on Paul’s phone and just got voicemail.
We went back to the evacuation centre to see if we could find him. As we approached, a huge helicopter towing a bucket of water appeared in front of us, dowsing the grass fire that had obviously spread. Wow!
“This is epic,” said Barry in excitement. We watched as another large helicopter covered the smoke with liquid. The air was filled with the throbbing of aircraft.
Barry and I decided to go to the beach and see if we could find my recalcitrant husband.
Things moved very quickly after that.
Shock
Visibility suddenly decreased as the smoke thickened and turned black. Firefighters emerged out of the gloom, urging us back into the evacuation centre. People kept coming in and out and the air rapidly filled with smoke. It got darker and harder to breathe and around us outside the sky was full of a lurid bright orange light.
“Keep the door shut!” people yelled as the sound of frightened conversations intensified.
A volunteer edged past us, asking if we had registered and saying she was scared. I was on the verge of hysterics wondering where Matt was.
Then the power went out. Some people screamed. I thought I may be going to die.
“I can see Matt,” Sarah yelled and pointed to the verandah where I could see him filming against the rust-coloured smoky sky.
I battled my way out onto the verandah and flung myself, sobbing, at my surprised husband who had explained he had tried to call me but had not been able to get through.
My friends had followed me and we all chastised Matt as a volunteer tried to get us back into the centre. “You’ve got to get out of the smoke,” she said.
We agreed, but one look inside the now dark, crowded and noisy centre put us off and we decided to walk the short distance to the Catalina Club.
There were no traffic signals. Cars emerged from the smoke-filled gloom and we ran across the road. The smoke was acrid in my throat and I kept coughing, as did the others.
Post-shock calm
The Catalina Club was an oasis of calm. We sat in a large room on comfortable chairs around a table. The toilets were clean and had emergency lighting and running water. There was plentiful water to drink. We all heaved a sigh of relief.
The club owners, bless them, emptied their fridges and gave us ham, cheese, bread and corn chips, and even leftover cheesecake. We also had a bag of grapes they had passed to us earlier. We hoped that the club would stay open for the night so we could sleep on the carpeted floor. One of the staff said it would depend on how many people were left there come the evening.
We heard from some of the other evacuees that the Rural Fire Service were giving an update at the evacuation centre at four so Sarah went to listen while the rest of us relaxed. She rang to say there was food there: souvlaki and salad, but by the time we had navigated the five-minute walk through the scorched-smelling fog and avoided being run over by the cars on the road, it had all gone. The centre was as packed and manic as ever with a massive queue for the next round of food. We did a quick tour of the basketball court and church where I managed to score a stale sausage roll, then we went back to the Catalina Club.
They had closed it. Admittedly more and more people had left as the day progressed (goodness knows where they had gone) but we had asked them to leave it open for us.
Still, we could not blame them. It was New Year’s Eve and they doubtless had parties to go to and lives to lead, even though there was no power anywhere in Batemans Bay.
We all agreed sleeping on the hard floor of the basketball court was not an option. Sarah rang a kind friend who agreed to let all seven of us dirty ash-strewn people and the dog stay at their house.
Post-shock party
Candles were lit in the delightful living room and Holly and John (Sarah’s friends) made us all welcome. We crooned over their beautiful little bichon frise, Hugo, who is a friend of Jackson’s and was excited to see them. We laughed at the dogs’ antics as they played together.
I was aware my legs, feet and hands were covered in grime. I went to the bathroom where I filled the sink with water and washed. I had to clean the dirt off the sink afterwards but felt much better for being a bit cleaner.
Matt and I went out to the car and I found my toiletry bag in the boot. I moisturised my face and combed my hair and applied fresh deodorant. Slowly, I was starting to feel human again.
We took a couple of bottles of wine into the house. Holly also had a bottle of cool sauvignon blanc. John cooked chicken on a gas barbecue while Holly made a salad, and we feasted and drank wine. The atmosphere almost became party-like.
There was even a short shower of rain. Neil and I went outside onto the patio and watched the too brief shower. It was glorious but oh so short.
Matt fell asleep on the couch and Hugo shuffled towards him on the top of the back of the settee, convinced it was a game. Enraptured, we watched as the beautiful little white dog edged ever nearer to my husband. Eventually, he licked his face. We all laughed. Matt roused himself a bit and stroked the dear little pup.
Holly and John went to a neighbour’s party but promised to be back before midnight. In the meantime, the rest of us relaxed. We were cleaner, we had wine to drink and we had two little dogs to care about. We decided where we would all sleep. Paul and Jan got the spare room, Matt and I got the sun loungers that got dragged in from outside, Sarah and Barry got the double couches and Neil got a couch in a break-out room.
Matt crashed out almost immediately. The rest of us partied on, albeit in a more sober style than usual. Holly and John returned, and at midnight we opened the champagne. In what must be one of the bizarrest new year’s eves ever, we stood with strangers we were beholden to toasting each other and singing Auld Lang Syne to the accompaniment of Matthew’s snores. Sarah promised to invite them to next year’s New Years Eve at their place. They will be most welcome, especially if they bring darling Hugo who I could not cuddle enough. He is so soft and has such big brown eyes.
We were more than ready for bed. I had brought my bag inside so I could clean my teeth but it was very dark in the living room once the candles had been extinguished and I could only find a dress to cover myself with. I was a little chilly, even though fully clothed.
Post-shock clean-up
Sarah woke me up very early the next morning on her way out to walk Jackson. We all got up soon after. John emerged and started to clean up the kitchen. We wished him many thanks and lots of love to Holly and Hugo, and left them in peace.
In our convoy of cars, in some dread as to what we’d find, we travelled the 15 minutes or so to Sarah and Neil’s place. The gate was there, the yard and garage were burnt to a cinder and the house was there.
We got out of our respective cars and explored. Their grounds were burnt and embers were still aflame, but it seemed as if the fire had gone up to the house’s perimeter, skirted it and then burnt the front yard.
Neil’s old car was destroyed. His pile of firewood in the back yard was left intact.
A dazed kangaroo sheltered beneath a charred tree.
In this charcoal, hellish environment we got to work to extinguish the embers. The two dams on the property still contained muddy water. We filled bucket after bucket and toiled up hills and through areas of burnt vegetation to extinguish anything dangerous. The worst areas were where fallen logs with flames were burning in their interior. Paul and Matt chopped these open so the rest of us could then put out the fires. It was very tiresome work and there were many danger areas.
Not having food or water, we toiled for a couple of hours after which I was exhausted. We went into the house that had been miraculously spared and slumped on the couch. Sarah and Neil’s water is from tanks pumped into the house and without power we could not access the water.
However, their very organised neighbours opposite had managed to save their beautiful home from bushfires, had gas as well as electricity, and had their own generator. We could take containers up there and they would fill them with drinking water.
They were kind people but their eyes were red from firefighting and they were exhausted. They said we could use their gas barbecue to cook but we would have to come over between five and six pm as they would be going to bed very early.
Our next port of call was Surf Beach, the nearest place to our friends’ house with public toilets and showers. We had been pissing on the embers but really needed a proper toilet and a good cleansing.
The cold shower in the public loo was a little grimy but the water felt amazing and it was so good to smell nice. I felt renewed, revitalised, and hopeful. We would get through this.
