If you’ve ever opened your oven and felt pure, dry heat venture forth and overcome, then you have an idea of what it was like in the state of Victoria on February 7, 2009.
Melbourne baked. The tinderbox of bush surrounding our capital city was mere accelerant for mother nature’s disaster cauldron that day – she mixed and evoked the elements of heat, wind and flame to create a monster so immense, it took weeks to subdue and served to remind us all (again) that we operate on human power while she dictates the terms.
I’d never experienced a day of weather like it. As Australians, we’re used to heat and drought. I’ve been lucky enough to visit countries on the equator and have spent time in our continent’s bush and north. It’s a hot land, but when you opened your backdoor on February 7th last year, it was almost like stepping into a fan-forced oven.
Many, many words have been written about Victoria, Australia on that day. There’s a wonderful personal memorial and some fantastic photos at ‘Little Miss Emma’s blog’. It’s an amazing read, highlighting how quickly events transpired on Black Saturday, and includes a pic of our city as the backdrop to a small bush setting of charred devastation.
We live a safe (enough) distance from the fire front, although it crept to within about 20 km of us in the days after the initial firestorm. My main memory is sitting at this keyboard, sweating and trying to write, while listening to the ominous chew, chew, chew, chew of low-flying Elvis helicopters as they flew from the city to fill at our nearby river and fight the fire. We smelled smoke. It was in our washing, our hair and the redness of the sky told us of the suffering of our neighbours.
One night at dusk, we watched four helicopters fly ‘home’ in formation to refuel. For a couple of weeks, they were a constant reminder of the war waging between fire and bush, a battle that confronts our sunburned country on a regular basis. Black Saturday reminds us that when this war is extreme, we are tiny in the face of nature’s elements.
We remember the loss of life, love and land ~ February 7, 2009
Rosie it was one of those days that, having lived through it, we will never forget it. We weren’t there in the thick of it, but we are part of the community that felt its devastating effect keenly. Each of us has a story to tell about Black Saturday, whether we were near or far from the fires. At about 10pm that night I was on the phone to my sister in the UK and relayed the news that ten people had died. By the end of the phone call, the toll was in the 80s and still rising. We cried and felt the same pain. The pain of loss for the people, the wildlife, the bush and for the way things were. The places we had picnicked, the playgrounds we had played in, the bush we delighted in – all gone.
The words and pictures in Little Miss Emma’s blog remind us how smoky it was, how close to Melbourne it was, how devastating and how frightening. In this part of the world we expect fires every summer, and every summer they come. This time it was different. You are so right Rosie – we are tiny in the face of nature’s elements. So very tiny.
That day. Gosh. I remember that they were saying on the news the night before ‘probably best to evacuate or prepare. So much for that.
And the sky for a week afterwards, it was so strange wasn’t it.
I just remember the day afterwards, watching the news and the stats grow larger and larger. You’d never know unless you were there what it was like, but the stories were horrific. I’d never experienced heat like those 4 days in a row. And I was stuck in my place because it was too hot to go out in the sun to get to a place with airconditioning. So all I did was sweat, rinse the cat under the tap and watch the horrible news unfold. Sad sad times for the little state of Vic.
Hi Fiona. An unusual day indeed. Our liquid amber tree lost a huge branch that day – it crashed onto the neighbours washing line (but I think I told you that) It added to the feeling of it being a day of natural reckoning. The branch splitting sound is another memory I have. As humans, we simply watch in the wake of natural disasters of this magnitude.
Hey Sez. I remember ‘chatting’ to you around that time at LJ. It was horrendous. The heat indescribable and the tension in the air was quite palpable. The days following were amazing too – terribly sad when all the news came through, and oppressively hot.
I’m so glad you wrote about this day here. I remembered you writing of it at the time, and it truly is something to record, isn’t it? Nature is astounding and horrifying and amazing isn’t it?
I like that you wrote about this. We always remember consequences of people’s acts on each other, almost never about nature vs people.
Is it because we feel ’safer’ when people are involve ? because of the sense of control ? because somehow, at some point, we can relate or explain ? But when nature gets in the way ?
I hope this Feb 7 and the next ones won’t be as hard as last year.
It is (perhaps) because nature has its own agenda, a force so powerful, we struggle to ever control it. Thanks hon. Feb 7 down here was cooler. It’s still so very dry.