Listening Earth Blog

As many of you are aware, Victoria is enduring one of its worst national disasters ever. As I write, 131 people are confirmed dead in horrendous bushfires, and there is an expectation that as emergency personnel go through the devastated areas, that number may climb to nearer 200. (update: now nearly 200, expected to approach 300)

Sarah and I have received many emails from concerned friends and customers, inquiring whether we’re well and safe. We are, thankfully, and we really appreciate your thoughts and concern. There have been no fires around our area, but it has been a terrible time for some people. The nearest fire to us has been in Bendigo, an hour’s drive to our north, where 2 people lost their lives and 50 homes were destroyed in a freak blaze, not in bushland but through the inner suburbs.

Sarah and I have actually been away from our bush home over the weekend, visiting friends in Melbourne, and for Sarah, attending a video editing training at Open Channel. It was only when we got down to Melbourne on Friday that we found out how bad the weather forecast was for Saturday.

Come Saturday and the weather was indeed frightening. It was like being in a forced-fan oven, with temps in the high 40s, winds gusting to 100kph, and humidity down to 1%! I kept an eye on the Country Fire Authority website all day, and phoned our neighbor Prue many times to find out what was going on at home. She assured me that, although the weather was indeed horrendous, everything was OK around our place. Not that we could have done much; if a fire had started it would have taken us 3 hours for us to drive back, even if we could get through with possible road closures. So the day was spent anxiously watching and hoping.

By Saturday afternoon, the Country Fire Authority seemed to be saying that while there were a multitude of localised fire incidents around the state, they were confident of containing them. However by early evening, that all changed. The fire that incinerated the township of Kinglake came as a complete surprise, surging 50km in a mere 15 minutes! People had no warning. Sarah and I were hearing it on ABC radio as it was happening. It was very personal for us because 15 years ago our first experience of living in the bush was in a little cottage nestled into the bush at Christmas Hills. It was only a few tens of kilometers from the fire area, and so we could vividly imagine what was happening.

That evening, we went back to Robin’s home in the Melbourne suburbs, and sat around talking and listening to the radio. We were about to pack up for the night and go to bed, when his phone rang. Half an hour later we had two extra families camping in the house; 3 adults, 3 kids, an 18 year-old dog and a cat. They had all evacuated from Warburton, which was under threat from ember attack.

Sunday and today, the temperatures have dropped significantly, which has given everyone some reprieve, but too late for many of course. Robin’s refugees returned home on Sunday and I think their homes were OK, although littered with debris. Meanwhile there are other friends of ours in danger areas we remain concerned about.

Sarah drove home Sunday evening, and after a dental appointment in Melbourne this morning, I returned by train this afternoon. It has been somewhat surreal for us, because we have witnessed it on TV and radio, but seen nothing except plumes of smoke on Melbourne’s northern horizon late Saturday. Walking around the city today, even riding by train through the countryside, everything appears normal. The devastation has been very localised, and extremely intense. The little village of Marysville, which we’ve been to many times, is totally destroyed. Toolangi forest, where we recorded the Sooty Owls and Lyrebirds heard on our ‘Tall Forest’ album, is tonight under threat from approaching fire-fronts. Many people have lost everything, not only homes but friends or family members. 3000 people are homeless, many having escaped with only the clothes they are wearing.

So it has been an awful few days, and it is not over yet. Several weeks of summer lie ahead in which the weather could warm up again. After 10 years of drought, the country is tinder dry. Today, even with cooler weather and abated winds, there are new fires burning, with several wildfires out of control around Victoria and NSW. We have had the radio on today, and there are still high alerts being issued, with communities under immediate threat.

The bush around our home is not as dense as the tall-timber forest where the fires have been so devastating. So we can only hope we won’t have to face a ‘perfect storm’ of weather conditions similar to the one that has brought about this tragedy.

Note: Photographs are not ours, but come from the ABC website c/o various agencies: www.abc.net.au