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It still haunts me, that moment we stepped from the car into the hot, crushing silence. It wasn't the sky, rendered sickly yellow by smoke, nor the blackened ground, from which the heat radiated. It was the silence.
Nothing stirred. Not a leaf. Not an insect. Not a bird. The apocalypse - all noise and fury days earlier - left in its wake deathly, unearthly quiet.
Photographer Sylvia Liber clicked away, capturing images of this once green landscape turned monochrome. I wondered how it would be possible to convey in words the magnitude and completeness of this destruction. The flames had moved on but life itself was extinguished.
This moment, on the second last day of 2019, on a road just reopened to the media, is etched in memory. And, along with many others, it's been stirring in the dead of night made sleepless by the heatwave just passed.
The dread when the fire came perilously close to where we live, turning the sky black at 3pm. SES tape on the letterbox, signifying we had been advised in person to decide whether to stay and fight or leave. The decision to stay. Neighbours gathering in the street to support each other, finding comfort in company. Lying awake later, wondering how I'd react if the flames came. Have we made the wrong decision? Will I crumble? Will I die?
The feeling of powerlessness the following week when the flames returned and we fled, not wanting to endure that terror again. Driving in convoy up the highway to safety in Sydney. She in the Jeep and I in the van, both vehicles grey with ash and packed with possessions and Jack, the ancient golden retriever. The realisation we'd become climate refugees. The neighbourhood survived but only just. Had the wind shift that sent the flames away taken 10 minutes longer to arrive, the suburb would have been lost.
All of this came flooding back this past week as record springtime heat swamped the south-east of Australia and scores of fires flared up.
Smouldering anger deep within also reignited. The ignored warnings. The disappearing prime minister. The tourists who insisted on staying, determined to have that summer holiday come what may, then complained when they were stuck in towns without power and no safe way out.
The amnesia with the coming of the COVID disaster that saw one government embrace a gas-led recovery, extracting more of the stuff that helped drive the firestorm, and its captured successor continue down the same fossil fuel path. The amnesia that threw out tax incentives to business operators, enabling them to buy monstrous, petrol-guzzling American trucks no other country wants.
The ongoing denial about the climate, despite the evidence in plain sight. Never mind the data, it's cool in Warrnambool, say some, so climate change is crap.
Grief has bubbled to the surface too. For the people lost. For the homes destroyed and lives still disrupted. And for country. Not country in our European understanding of the word but something much deeper. I remember vividly the distress on Yuin elder Noel Butler's face as we stood in the scorched ruins of his NSW South Coast property. He'd put years of care into his small patch of country but it had not been enough to withstand the flames that consumed thousands of square kilometres around him.
From late November 2019 through to February the following year when the rain finally came, the Black Summer fire was all consuming in my part of the world. But "Black Summer" didn't tell the whole story. The fires had been raging across NSW since winter. For months, they'd raged somewhere else. We cried at the anguish of burnt koalas. We wondered how it was possible lush rainforests were burning. We feared for friends up north whose lives and property were menaced.
Then in November it arrived in our region, at first a small blaze in remote and inaccessible forest but by year's end a terrifying monster whose threat didn't subside for another month and a half.
Now, there's unease whenever a hot, dry wind blows out of the interior. When it blows for several days as it just has, memory kicks in like a primal survival mechanism. There's a stiffening in the neck, a renewed vigilance, a rechecking of maps and possible escape routes even though there's no fire nearby. But there's also hope - perhaps vain - that we won't have to endure such a calamity again.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Did we learn any lessons from the Black Summer fires? Has enough been done to limit the risk of a similar catastrophe? Were you caught up in the fires? What's your key memory from that time? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- An inquiry has been announced into Australia's response to the COVID-19 pandemic to learn the lessons in a "constructive, rather than destructive" way. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Health Minister Mark Butler announced the 12-month inquiry in Adelaide as fulfilling an election promise and while the still-mutating and prevalent virus is still in the community.
- Former federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg has given his strongest signal yet his political career is on hold following his appointment to chair investment bank Goldman Sachs' Australian business. Mr Frydenberg joined the firm as an adviser last year after losing his blue-ribbon Liberal seat of Kooyong in Melbourne to teal independent Monique Ryan.
- Federal MPs from across the Australian political spectrum have united to call on the US government to end its ongoing pursuit of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, Labor MP Tony Zappia, teal independent Monique Ryan, Liberal senator Alex Antic and two Greens senators Peter Whish-Wilson and David Shoebridge are in Washington DC to lobby the government to abandon its extradition proceedings against Assange.
THEY SAID IT: "Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going." - Tennessee Williams
YOU SAID IT: Tetchy PM uncomfortable with hard questions about his cosiness with Indian leader Narendra Modi.
Ken writes: "A Modi-led India, by its self-serving tolerance of a Putin-led Russian invasion of Ukraine and interference in a free press at home, already confirms India does not deserve a seat at the top table. Albanese's judgment on a range of matters is beginning to look a little clouded and he could well benefit by spending more time at home listening to the proletariat instead of collecting frequent flyer points."
"Yes, journalists should be able to ask the hard questions," writes Ian, "and the PM needs to always respond in a calm and wise manner. Also, some journalists think it's all about them, and deliberately ask obnoxious, provocative, and just plain unfair or stupid questions, at which even a Zen master might feel inclined towards a bit of eye rolling. Filling a 24/7 news cycle when the content only warrants 30 minutes a day must be tedious even for the journos. Nevertheless, journalists could do a lot more to improve the quality of political debate in this country, which is not to take away the responsibility of the politicians themselves, who should also do a lot better."
John writes: "Albanese's response to the reporter's question about Modi is utterly unacceptable on three counts: the question was a good one and needs an answer; it reveals a blind spot in Albanese's judgment; and a politician losing his/her temper over a legitimate question suggests massive defensiveness which is not what constitutes statesmanship. Modi's India is bordering on fascist, the people are in far worse condition than he makes out, and he does not hesitate to back political murders. Albanese is a small man pretending to stride the international stage like a statesman. That he is not, as this incident tells us."
"He doesn't need to cuddle the guy," writes Jock. "An alliance. Maybe. Trade deals. OK. Discussing similar values. Sure. But then we come up against the problem of Modi's Hindu-fascism. I wonder what Australia's Muslims think of the cuddles?" As for the PM's reaction to the question: "What does this reveal? Is there another Albo underneath the public Albo? Surely not. This guy has kicked a few heads in his time, politically. And his honeymoon is over, so he's probably feeling a little fragile. But it's time for Anthony Albanese to grow in the role and to do so, and become a tad more ambitious, maybe he should take his own advice and 'chill out', dude."
Mark writes: "India looks after their own national interests, regardless of how they operate internally. Australia puts up with human rights abuses in China and Saudi Arabia. India openly trades with China and Russia. The questions should be 'Why does Australia bother to have a foreign policy at all? And why do we give foreign aid to anyone, except for natural disasters, when we have such huge problems at home?'"
"Leadership is a lonely position where you certainly can listen and negotiate but you need to be seen as impartial," writes John from Newcastle. "Cosy photo ops such as the PM wearing a Rio Tinto shirt on a train or being at a large gathering with Modi are forever in media archives and will come back to haunt him."