Even today, the smell of bushfire smoke still sparks in me a tinge of fear, and an automatic PTSD flashback to my 1950s childhood.
In Eden, in the summer bushfires of 1951, a wall of flames raced towards the town. The entire population evacuated to nearby Aslings Beach.
People brought with them what they could quickly gather. Some even managed to bring beds and wardrobes, which were strewn up and down the beach, as if dumped by a giant freak wave.
As a five-year-old, that far off day in 1951 is etched indelibly in my memory. Along with the bushfire smoke, you could almost smell the fear of the people, as it seemed we were about to lose our entire town.
In the centre of Eden in the early 1950s, there was a massive dump of 44-gallon drums of petrol, which could have blown the town sky high if the bushfire had taken hold.
Initially, our family, along with many others, stayed to protect our homes, as the strong wind carried the embers over Eden. My job, together with my two elder brothers, was to wield wet hessian sugar bags and strike at any of the fire debris that rained from the sky, like paratroopers before an invasion. But eventually, this became too dangerous.
But then a miracle. The wind suddenly changed direction, and the bushfire was blown back on itself. Eden was saved.
Five years later, in 1956, in the town of Bargo in the NSW Southern Highland, between Bowral and Picton, the whole bushfire nightmare played out for me again. But this time we were living inland, and there was no beach to run to as yet again a major fire approached our town. As our parents left our home to help fight the fire, my two brothers and I played Canasta around the dining room table. At the time, we were 16, 13, and 10. We were trying to concentrate on our cards, but the occasional glance through the window revealed the smoke-filled air was becoming increasingly dark as the bushfire swept towards us.
Suddenly, there was a change in wind direction, and the town and three young brothers were saved. However, a grim fate awaited the chickens in the large poultry sheds, that ubiquitously dotted the landscape around the town. Most of chooks died from smoke inhalation or heat radiation. For years after that life-threatening fire, I would often look anxiously out of my bedroom window in Bargo each morning, checking for smoke on the horizon. One morning, I did spot in the distance a large bushfire, which in the following weeks never seemed to be extinguished. Each day, I would anxiously check if it had grown or had come closer.
When will we learn to better manage fire in our forests? This should now be a top priority as Australian homes increasingly encroach on bushland. We seem to be following the siren song, Home Among the Gum Trees.
As well as living in eucalypt forests or 'out in the bush,' this is increasingly happening in our cities. On the 'leafy' north shore of Sydney, home-owners plant gum trees and other flammable vegetation. Why?
If we are to stay safe when bushfires strike during our long hot summers, we must better understand our fire-prone land.
We need to appreciate why our gum trees, under certain conditions, pose such a danger to lives and property. The most realistic way to describe the eucalypt, or gum tree, is as an 'incendiary bomb'.
It is built to burn.
The gum tree needs fire to propagate and spreads fire with the fuel it produces with its leaves, bark, and branches that fall to the ground. The tree also contains oils, which not only burn but give this off as a gas, which acts as another conduit for the spread of fire.
How can the gum tree and people better co-exist, and minimise the increasing danger to life and property as Australia continues to dry out due to global warming?
Several policy changes would significantly improve the situation each summer.
As eucalypt trees near homes constitute a significant and present danger, a law is required to remove all gum trees within a 100 metres radius of any house. Local councils should provide funding for homeowners to replace eucalypts with less flammable plants. Also, stricter zoning laws are required to prevent the construction of homes or estates in the middle of eucalypt forests. Developers should be required to leave a 100-metre 'short grass firebreak' between homes and bushland.
Given the level and intensity of modern-day bushfires, we have to use more technology to reduce the risks to our brave volunteer firefighters. Governments need to buy many more water-bombing aircraft and deploy the military more extensively.
Additionally, like our First Nation people, we must dramatically increase the scale of burn-offs in the cooler months. As 87 per cent of bushfires are either carelessly or deliberately lit, we need more severe penalties for firebugs and extensive public and school education programs to attempt to eliminate this dangerous behaviour.
Finally, the government must take climate change more seriously and proactively decarbonise the Australian economy as soon as possible.
