52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Witness to History

The theme for week 4 in #52weeks is Witness to History.  I decided to write my first-hand story to possibly the greatest disaster Canberra has suffered. This is timely, as last week was the 21st anniversary.

On the 18th January 2003 Canberra experienced the most destructive bushfires in its history.  Four people died, hundreds were injured, over 500 properties were destroyed, over 70% of the ACT’s pastures, pine plantations, and nature parks were severely damaged.  The death toll to native wildlife was significant.

Lightning strikes on the 8 January 2003 in the Namadgi and Brindabella National Parks had started several fires. Due to the inaccessibility of the terrain, decisions were made to allow the fires to continue to burn, instead of trying to fight them aggressively. This decision had dramatic, and fatal, consequences. The fires stayed within containment lines until Friday 17 January. On that Friday evening, burnt leaves and ash were dropping in my front yard. The hills in the Brindabellas had a red glow around them. With the predicted weather conditions, we were in for a bad weekend, little did we realise how bad it was going to be.

I didn’t sleep well that night.  I got up about 5 am on the Saturday morning, to the news that a fire had burnt to within 5 kms of Tharwa, and embers were starting fires up to 2kms ahead of the main fire. This was getting way too close, as Tharwa is only about 5 kms from where I live.

Looking out my front window, the hills behind Gordon were ringed with fire from back burning. The smoke at the time was no more than we had had for the last two weeks. I walked up to Tharwa Drive, only to find two bushfire vehicles parked in Pockett Avenue and Tharwa Drive was already blocked (at 5.30am).

As the morning wore on, the smoke got thicker and thicker, more and more burnt and smoldering leaves and ash was falling around us. That morning I got on the computer and burnt all of my important files onto a disk in case of evacuation. I had to go shopping for Dad’s birthday present, so I made a quick dash into town, and out again. I packed the car before I left, in case the situation deteriorated whilst I was away, and I couldn’t get back home again.  By the time that I got back (I was only gone about an hour), the smoke was stifling. On my way home I stopped at Tuggeranong to buy new hose fittings (just in case, as the old ones were leaking). I pulled into Bunnings just on noon. Debris was now falling in Tuggeranong, and visibility was non-existent. 

From here on in, everything blurs together.  The smoke got worse and worse.  The sky turned red, then by about 2pm it was pitch black and stayed that way until about 4pm.  Everyone in the street started hosing their houses down.   I put my sprinklers on to at least moisten all the mulch around my house.  Radio updates provided a list of suburbs who should be on alert, and ready to evacuate, if necessary, my suburb being one of them.  At some point I took down the curtains, moved furniture, and filled tubs and sinks with water, as advised by the radio. The pitch black turned to an eerie golden colour. 

There were many “street conferences” that day. People would be in their yards, hosing everything down, and we would end up talking in the middle of the street, comparing notes about what we had heard from the different media services. During one of these “conferences” two scared kangaroos hopped down the street, and down the path beside my yard, escaping the fire to the south of us. Confused children came out to ask their parents what time it was, and was it time to go to bed yet, as it was dark, they didn’t believe that it was really still afternoon.

Throughout the afternoon, there were many calls to and from my parents, as well as numerous phone calls from concerned relatives and friends, offering me somewhere to evacuate to. Unfortunately, South Canberra was pretty much cut off. There was no way out. The major roads (Tuggeranong Parkway, Monaro Highway, Athlon Drive and Erindale Drive) were all closed.

The local radio station usually had a buy/swap/swell program on Saturday mornings, which finished at 12pm when they then picked up programming from Sydney. That morning, they moved away from buy/swap/swell format and gave residents a forum to ring up with updates from their areas about what was happening. And the programming didn’t finish at 12pm, local coverage continued well into the night. Thank goodness they had they foresight to do this, and their presenters took it upon themselves to head into the station to share the on air duties, or provide on the spot reports from impacted areas. On a day when it felt like hell had descended upon us, having timely local updates was a godsend. 

From radio and TV updates, I knew what was happening in the Weston Creek area. This was the area that suffered the brunt of the fire. Updates indicated that houses were being destroyed, that Duffy Service Station had gone up, and that the fire had crossed Point Hut Crossing and had come into Gordon (the suburb next to me. It seemed as if Canberra was surrounded.  No matter what direction you looked, all you could see was red.  Lightening was flashing. It seemed too bizarre, that in the middle of this hell, there could be lightning. What we didn’t realise at the time, was that Canberra had been hit by a firestorm, and that it was creating its own weather pattern. 

Later on (about 6’ish), flames started to come over the hill behind Gordon. Everyone continued hosing their houses, the sense of urgency had increased. There was a sense of desperation and panic. Some decided that the time had come to evacuate. Whereas before people would stop what they were doing to go into the street to talk to their neighbour, now it was deadly serious. Not having a ladder, I was unable to get onto the roof to hose it down. I stood in front of my house, with the hose held as high as I could get it, tears streaming down my face, trying to get as much water as possible onto the roof in case of embers. I hosed down the fences, and kept wetting down the mulch. As the neighbours on either side of me were both away, I did what I could to wet their roofs as well. All the time, all I could think was “When do I evacuate?” and “Where do I go?”.  As country kids, we were always told if you’re caught in a fire, don’t drive into the “unknown”.  As all the major roads were closed, there wasn’t a clear escape path.  In hindsight, I probably left it too late, though in my defence the speed of the fire took everyone by surprise.  By the time updates were being given on the radio and TV, the roads were already closed.

AND THEN THE WIND DROPPED!

The fire continued to burn, but it basically just stayed in the one place, until it finally burnt itself out. When I finally went to bed after midnight, it was still glowing. About 10.30, they announced on the radio that some streets in Gordon, Banks and Conder were about to be evacuated. There was no indication of which ones. For the hundredth time I went through the house to see if there was anything else I should take with me if I was evacuated. Should I pack the china I’d received for my 21st? Or some of my books? I had already packed an overnight bag with half a dozen change of clothes, all my photos and photo albums, my tickets to the John Farnham, Seekers, and Olivia Newton John concerts which were on in the next few months , and all of my family history research and programs. In hindsight, I didn’t pack any of my jewellery, no toiletries and no sleepwear. So much for trying to be organised. I rang several numbers, trying to find out what parts of my suburb were being evacuated, but with no luck. All I was told was that if my street was to be evacuated, an SES worker would knock on my door. No-one knew how long this would take. As I had been awake since 5 that morning, and after all of the stress of the day, I was feeling tired, but I didn’t dare go to bed in case someone knocked on the door. By about 1.00 I decided that I probably wasn’t going to be evacuated now, so I finally went to bed. Just in case, however, I left a lamp on in the lounge room, so that if someone did knock on the door, they would know that there was someone home.

When I woke up on Sunday morning, it was evident that things had eased somewhat overnight.  There was still a lot of smoke around.  Helicopters flew overhead, collecting water from Googong dam to dump on the fires, backwards and forwards time and time again.  With the roads reopened, Mum and Dad drove up from Goulburn (an hour away), so that Dad could check everything was ok.  He brought a ladder with him so that he could check my gutters and empty them if necessary.

It took days for the full impact of the fires to be realised. In the weeks, months and years that followed, there was much finger pointing and blame allocation. Several enquiries were held, to look at what had happened, to prevent this from happening again. It was later documented and confirmed that this fire was the world’s first confirmed case of a “fire tornado”.