Victoria on Fire / Black Saturday

By  Rusalka Johnston

 

A weekend escape to Marysville

 

I had decided to escape the city with my thirteen-year-old dog Mack, to escape the noise of the St Kilda Festival and enjoy the countryside that I love, for a weekend break. I had decided on Marysville as it is only about 100kms from Melbourne and I knew the area quiet well.

 

The drive to Marysville

 

I drove for two hours to Healesville on Friday through intense 37°C heat and dense afternoon traffic to get to the Black Spur. The Black Spur was once an outstandingly beautiful area you used to drive through to get to Marysville. That afternoon The Black Spur was filled with dappled light that drifted through the Mountain Ashes of 50ft to 70ft in height. Lower down below the leafy canopy, the vertically defined tree trunk landscape was soften with the green lace of tree ferns, some as tall as houses. It smelt like Australia - eucalyptus green. It was cooler here and the birds sounded as only Australian birds can, calling out in their contrapuntal tones. It was now, here in the beautiful spur, that I first felt free from the belligerent heat of concrete and noise that was the city that day.

 

In Marysville I had rented a dog-friendly property called Mon Amour for three days in the township of Marysville. My address was 54 Sunds Rd; the place was a wooden cottage with an expansive verandah, two horses in the back paddock and fragrant bush land adjacent. Mon Amour was the last house on the right of Sunds Road.

 

 

 

 

 

I sat and ate my dinner Friday night overlooking Mt Gordon and Woods Lookout. I was so pleased to hear the wind in the tall trees moving through the foliage, to listen to the sounds of the nocturnal creatures in the bush, to be finally free of the relentless pounding of the city and see the stars in the heavens that night. By 3.30pm Saturday afternoon Woods Lookout was the direction the fire was coming from, the direction the dense smoke billowed across the sky. The ridge at Woods Lookout was what separated Marysville township from the fire.

 

Growing up and living in Australia you get used to the idea of bushfires. City people see them on the television and in the newspapers – at a distance and in the abstract.

I had driven through burnt out landscapes in the past – but regeneration had occurred – young leaves and fresh grasses had sprouted quickly amongst the blackened trunks of trees. I had assumed Marysville would never be touched by fire - it was too green, it was too pretty, and too civilised.

 

 

Murchison St Marysville

Saturday Morning 10.30am -12pm

 

In the morning Marysville was pretty, green and very hot. A dry wind blew amongst the treetops. The shops were quiet and relatively free from tourists, but it was business as usual and in the street the native birds were feeding. In the tourist information centre customers chatted about their plans and I bought some new maps for a walk I planned to take the next day, as it was expected to be only 25°C.

 

 

Saturday morning was strikingly hot from the beginning. I had to go to the real estate agent and do some shopping. In each shop I visited, and with each person I met, we talked about the heat. The temperature was supposed to reach 43°C but the temperatures in Victoria had been close to that for over a week and so, so it was just another day to manage yourself and your animals through. 

 

Across the road from the tourist information centre, outside the entrance to the supermarket, two local Mum’s braved the heat as they were fund raising, for $2 a piece, selling sponsorship of plastic Ducks for a silly Duck race, to raise funds for the kindergarten. A young man sat quietly with them on a camping chair while his mother garnered sponsorship - he was to celebrate his eighth birthday that afternoon. I said Happy Birthday and paid my money to the women who said she’d call me if my Duck won the race. I moved on to finish my supply shopping. I took my dog Mack to the creek that ran through the town to cool him down. He plonked himself down in the crystalline stream and I smiled at the beauty and the simplicity of it all.

 

Marysville 12pm – 4 .30pm

 

 

At 54 Sunds Rd I talked with the repairman who had come to fix the glass back door that had fallen off. I sat on the verandah, so pleased to have the space, and joked with him about procrastinating with my Masters work. He introduced me to his horse Ben and we chatted about the little things in life like children, dogs, divorce and marriage. It was really hot and I couldn’t stay outside. I went inside to do research and fell asleep on

 

 

 

When I woke up the atmosphere had completely changed. From the bed I saw that the sky was no longer blue the light had become orange/grey – the light was now dirty and different. I went outside to investigate the difference. Unfortunately, an immense dark cloud had crossed Mt Gordon and the sky had changed from pristine sky blue to be darkened by an enormous mass of charcoal and beer coloured cloud. I watched this mass, curiously not sure if it was the darkening of rain clouds or the result of bush fires – I was uncertain of what the cloud meant because I couldn’t smell fire at this stage.

 

I had wanted to swim that day, to enjoy the water in the heat. In the morning I had found the Marysville Public Pool, it was adjacent to the Primary School and the oval that I would unexpectedly return to later that day.

 

Around 4pm on Saturday afternoon the pool was filled with kids playing, Dads with daughters and sons, laughing, giggling, being stupid, throwing balls and splashing about in the aqua blue water. The water was fresh and a relief from the searing heat. I did some laps and enjoyed the space and the ease of the world around me. I contemplated the human need to get on with things – our wish to enjoy life. Lying on my back I continued to look up into the sky - the dirty cloud mass billowed and stretched across the sheet blue sky, darkening the atmosphere. For some reason not easily explained I began to get anxious and fretful.

 

I did not know what to do in a bush fire. What would I do with the horses? How would I protect Mack? What did I do at the house, watering it would surely not be enough? I asked the young female Lifeguard a local girl if she knew what was going on with the fires, as she was tuning the radio but she couldn’t get reception with Marysville local radio, and therefore didn’t know. I decided I had better return to Mon Amour to look after things, the animals and home as best I could.

 

At Mon Amour I heard the sound of an alarm through out Marysville on two occasions, but I did not know what it meant. I was worried about the two horses in the back yard.  Not knowing what to do but wanting to do something, I watered the brown one down and then the white one named Ben, who hated getting wet and tried to hide from me. I watered their shed and watered the huge gum tree adjacent to it, in the vain hope that what I was doing may help the creatures and tree if the fire roared through.

 

I briefly went inside, wondering what I could do for the horses if the fire came over us and to put on some clothing. I returned to the kitchen and looked outside, I was surprised and fearful to find some people in the back garden. I thought they were stealing the horses and went out to confront them – calmly. In fact they were saving the horses, and they told me to get out quickly that the fire was coming over the ridge next to me, next to the house. I asked them where I should go, they told me to go to the oval.

 

I didn’t know these people and I didn’t know if they were being dramatic, I guess I didn’t want to believe them. So I called the local forestry whose number I had inadvertently attained that morning, and rang up to offer my assistance to the community. The woman [who answered] said, “Thank you. But we are OK. Thanks for offering.” I then thought I’d better ask her what I should do in case the fire came through Marysville and she said, “Just stay where you are. The police will come and get you if there is a problem.” I said “Thanks.” And the phone call ended.

 

 

Deciding who to listen to – I thought about the fact there were 600 residents in the town and about two policemen. I thought about the fact that nobody in town knew I was there – I was a city person and I’d be low on the list of priorities in the case of a disaster. It was then I decided that I’d trust the people who thought and cared enough about the horses to move them to safer ground rather than the disembodied voice at the end of the phone.

So, I packed my dog’s food and medication and I grabbed my laptop and a blanket and put them in the car. When I went back to the house to get something else the power had been cut. Instead of re-entering the house I went straight to the car and drove away.

 

The Oval 5pm on

The Marysville oval was the main safety area for the townspeople; cars, vans, trucks, a Winnebago, the horses from my property, dirt bikes, and 4WD’s congregated on it. Spilling from the vehicles were concerned adults and children, it seemed like most people had taken what was most important to them and had brought their children, partners and animals. Owners attended to their dogs and gave their creatures comfort and water. A mixture of cats and chickens filled the back of a woman’s van – she described them as her “furry and feathered children”.

 

Families, animals, pets and loved ones were filling the oval. As I looked around measuring the scene I was relieved that there was a lake to the left of the sports field.

Water comforted me and offered reassurance against the fires. Sadly, later on I learned that there was an island in the centre of the lake and that the fire had jumped across the water to the island and burned all that was once there. 

 

 

 

For me time was now measured by the arrival of cars and the news locals gathered from their mobile phone calls.  On the oval mobile phones were used constantly by everyone it was the only way to find out what was going on and the news was frightening, alarming, scary and awful.  On the ground rumour and uncertainty contributed to the atmosphere of fear. The fire was coming, but when?

 

I realised that my family did not know where I was and that my flatmate would probably worry when they heard the news about the fires so I rang Melbourne to tell my flatmate where I was and what was going on in Marysville. I did not want to alarm or worry loved ones but I also did not want to become a statistic or an unknown burden. So I called home and promised to continue to keep in touch like so many others that day.

 

I spoke with a woman who had driven through fire from Narbethong as she secured her dogs. A woman from the Marysville information centre had tears in her eyes as she ended a phone call to a friend. Someone she knew was trapped in a shed as the fire ravaged their property. Husbands and wives made choices to flee or defend, to separate or stay together, in flash like moments.

 

The golf course was touted as the safest place to be. No one was prepared for the fire, we didn’t know what to do, or how to be safe. It was all happening very quickly. From the sky dirty debris fell, not embers as feared but the detritus from all that the fire has burnt as the momentum of the fire pushes it forward. Burnt leaves and carbonated life fell from the sky around us. The embers fell soon after I left.

 

 

 

 

 

The sky was filling with smoke and I believe we looked up and across to the west and the fire had ignited the bush to the front of us – it had crossed the protective ridge and moved into Marysville from the direction of Narbethong and was here with us, the flames were with us.

 

It was then that a police car arrived and the Marysville policeman told us it was time to go that we had to evacuate now. We were to head to Alexandra in a convoy. I was close to the front of this convoy as I had parked very close to the entrance of the oval for the very purpose of exiting quickly.

 

 

The Evacuation

 

The smoke from the fires was everywhere now not as dense as it would become but as we left the centre of Marysville the air and the light had become grey with the smoke of fires and burnt life.

 

We headed out to Alexandra on the main road past the Golf course where there were plenty of cars, past houses, farms and streams to Buxton. At Buxton the police directed traffic moving the cars on towards Taggerty and then towards Alexander. Buxton is very small I always think of it as just a milk bar, a telephone booth, a logger’s pub and a diner cum petrol station.

 

The pub car park was filled with working 4WD’s, Toyotas with trays and the like. The people seemed mostly to be men and they stood around with what appeared to be calm. The sheer number of vehicles at the Pub three times more than I had ever seen - designated the day as out of the ordinary.

 

The drive on through Taggerty to Alexandra is about 30kms and was uneventful, but the heat and the haze remained in the air and the land around me. The region was under stress. I was relieved to be away from the flames, and the dense plumes of smoke from the fire at Marysville, Narbethong and Healesville, from the fire that was burning through the forests, the bush and the farms. I was relieved to be away from the fire that was taking so much life in its momentum.

 

I had no idea where I would stay or what to expect at Alexandra but that seemed irrelevant in comparison to what I had heard and witnessed in Marysville I knew I would and could manage discomfort and dislocation.

 

Upon entering Alexander I pulled in to the first caravan park where three people who looked like old school bikers stood at the entrance. They were the owners of the business and I told them I had just come from Marysville and that it had been evacuated.

 

I asked if I could rent a caravan or space but they said no, they were full and had no power and when I said I needed petrol they said I couldn’t get any as the pumps were out because of the power blackout. At that point my anxiety increased I had ¼ of a tank of petrol left and I had to get to god knows where. I hoped it would all work out for me, as I didn’t want to be alone and in my car by the side of the road and without petroI to drive my car with the fires heading towards me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I asked the three where I could go? What direction I should take? And anything else that might help me find shelter and petrol to get around. They told me to keep going to head towards Eildon that I might find something or somewhere if I kept going. It seemed to me they wanted to be helpful but like everyone else they were dealing with the situation as it unfolded and the day was turning on its head, it seemed as if Victoria was on fire.

 

As soon as I stopped at the main intersection of Alexandra I knew the trouble was far worse than I had comprehended. I had called out from the car as I slowed at the main intersection and asked questions quickly, are you local? Do you know where my dog and I can stay? The answers were the same. “We are evacuees.”

 

I headed out of Alexandra there were others cars doing this too and we had about 27kms to cover before we got to the next town called Thornton. The sky was grey with smoke and my thoughts were focused on a place to stay, the night and my concerns about finding petrol.

 

By the time I got to Thornton the cars behind me were not visible so I slowed to ask a couple beside the road if they were local and thankfully they were. When I told them I had come from Marysville and needed a place to stay with my dog the man suggested I drive on further to Eildon Holiday Resort to find a place to sleep that also accepted dogs. The man said it was about 7kms away on the right and that a Pub fronted it.

 

This new place became my focus and I was determined to have a place to stay, to establish some security for myself and my dog Mack. To my great relief I quickly found the place and pulled in out the front. Outside stood a man and a woman.

 

These people turned out to be the owners of the Eildon Holiday Resort, a husband and wife team. Initially when I asked them if I could rent a room they said no, but I pressed on asking them then could I rent a car space and pay to use their toilet? The couple had a mini conference in front of me and the women whose name was Medina agreed to rent me a room. My dog had to stay in the car – but I now had somewhere to rest for the night.

 

I parked my car and opened the room up. It was boiling hot but it had a shower and a toilet I was just so fortunate.

I returned to the Pub bar where there were a few people. The power was out but a number of people were eating dinner, piles of chips protruded from their plates. I told the bar my story, making light of my city qualities and conveying the irony of my escape from the city. I told them what I knew from being at the oval of the locals saving the horses at 54 Sunds Rd, and of what it was like at Marysville, Buxton and Taggerty. They listened intently.

 

They asked me if I could cook or what skills I had? As fire volunteers from DSE and CFA were staying the night – Could I pull a beer? Would I cook in the bloody hot kitchen? A lovely friendly woman who worked at the Pub wanted to keep busy and she gladly made me some dinner. Before I had eaten a third of my fish and chips, the news came in that Marysville was gone.

 

The news about Marysville was both believable and unbelievable. From what I had seen, heard and experienced it wasn’t hard to believe, but was it true? Was the truth being exaggerated? As people say so many things and believe what they wish to.

 

 

 

Then more news came in - that Buxton was gone. It was so hard to comprehend only minutes before I had driven through Buxton past waiting men and I had assumed it was safe – but now it was no more, my memories of it, were now just memories, its features now just charred remains.

 

 

Eildon Holiday Resort

 

On the Pub’s verandah there were a few people waiting and watching. The air around was now completely dense with thick fire smelling smoke. Our world was suspended in a thick blackened blanket that was tinged orange. Your eyes hurt and you knew that you were breathing in death and destruction. It was nothing less than an apocalyptic scene. You could only see a few feet in front of you. There was no horizon, no middle distance; just the thick strangely sweet smelling burnt smoke that coated everything in a dirty residue. We were together in a burnt soup, submerged in the heat and the forthcoming addition of the black darkness of night.

 

Workers, white 4WD’s pulled in and volunteer fire fighters came in to the pub. Exhausted, these men were quiet and weary. We gave them food and fluids and assisted them as we could. I talked with them in hope that speaking with them, that their burdens and worries might be a little relieved. I didn’t want to intrude nor did I want to leave them alone in their thoughts and worries.

 

They needed help as they were helping us, and the land, which I learned later that they loved.  Without power there was no news except what came in by car or from a mobile and so the firemen brought with them the bigger picture, as well as more uncertainty.

 

The men were so resilient, but profoundly moved. A young, young man had been fighting the fire all day and couldn’t get hold of his Mother. She had been at their home, a property, when the fire had come. All he wanted was to hear from her. All he wanted was for her to be safe.

 

The men were distressed by the fact they had to stop fighting the fire for the night. They had been told to stop and rest for the evening because the fire was so large and so strong they would be needed the next day and they needed their strength to fight on. So these men felt frustrated, overwhelmed, and useless in the face of this disaster – but in turn they were resigned to rally their strength and hope for the next day.

 

They did not know where they would be deployed and would not know till early morning as the fire or fires were on a scale that was vast. The fires were more powerful, faster and more devastating than anyone had ever experienced or imagined. They had taken out so much land and life in the region in a matter of hours; so much of the shire of Murrindindi had burned already that day and it was still burning. 

 

The darkness of night now surrounded us, and the emergency lights gave out after a few hours adding to the tension and uncertainty that surrounded us. Torches were found and we carried on in the darkness, waiting for news, waiting for more information. Suddenly the lights went on and we all went inside. Something approaching normality had returned as the wall mounted flat screen televisions played the news, the bar lights shone and the air conditioning freed us from the dense smoke that had filled our air ways, eyes and skin.

 

 

 

 

Mack lay on the floor and slept exhausted. Whilst I sat there watching him, a volunteer fireman from Myrtleford who I had been speaking with for sometime said quietly to me, “ I don’t know you but get out get to Mansfield. “ If I were you, get out and go home.”

 

 

Thornton – Alexander Sunday

 

I had set my alarm for 6am I wanted to be up before the real heat of the day set in and somehow I wanted to beat the fire, as it would spread in the heat. I awoke to a world that was frightening, the smoke was thick and dense and everywhere. I was scared by the smoke, by the fact the firemen had gone, by the haze and by the heat – it was horrible to know what it meant, it was horrendous to think about, it was like the world was on fire. I was worried for the creatures in the bush, I watched as the Cockatoos flew around and squawked amongst the gum trees. I wondered what they would do and if they would be ok. We were in a nightmare, in a burning world.

 

I needed petrol to get around and I didn’t know what to expect, but the fact the power had returned the night before gave me hope. I headed back to Alexandra and thought that I would stop at Thornton to find a public phone box, as my mobile had no coverage in the area. Thornton is very small and quiet, but it was from here in the smoke thickened world that I called Melbourne and told my friend of my plans to head to Alexandra for information and petrol.

 

Near Alexander I found a petrol station and filled up, to my great relief. However, it was here that I found out that the roads were closed and I would have to stay in the area until it was safe. It was then that I determined that I couldn’t wait out the day on my arse.

 

I had come away to work on my studies on my career and to be healthy and now I was without that anchor or focus and without my stuff. I asked the locals I was speaking with to direct me to where I could offer my help. I needed to be engaged and useful in this crisis.

 

In Alexandra, I stopped at the first church I came across as I had been directed by two ladies who worked at the service station that this was a place where I could be of assistance this was my first port of call. The church hall was filled with refugees from the fire. They tuned out to be a church group on tour and they too turned out to be lost and uncertain. Their day was just beginning and they had no idea what it might hold.

 

A little further down the road I found the school where many people were housed. It was easy to find as the roadside was lined with cars and trucks parked on the pale yellow, dry grass that I profoundly associate with this drought-ridden summer in Victoria. I parked and left Mack in the car and went to the entrance. It was lined with aging Rotarians as they manned a BBQ and passed plates of sizzling meats across to carriers who took the food inside to the evacuees.

 

This group of greyed and weathered locals were feeding everyone. They cooked wads of bacon and rissoles to place in square white bread. These Rotarians were focused and concerned but at ease in a non-city way that I found immensely reassuring. When I told them I was here to offer my help they did not want it. They suggested I offer my assistance to the organisers inside the shelter. Instead of taking my help they offered me food and handed me their mobile phones when I said I didn’t have coverage, they made phone calls for me when I couldn’t work out what was wrong. I stayed with them while they cracked jokes about the smoke and giving up smoking. I sat with them while they realised the morning shift on the hot plate had basically ended. And I was with them when they began to realise that without something to do, the horrible reality of the situation was all that you were left with. You were left with concern, fear and uncertain with sadness and pain, you left without knowledge adrift in uncertainty – doing something was precious in its relief.

 

 

Amidst the chaos of displacement and loss, fright and flight, success, life, love, families, animals, children and dogs there quickly developed a physical cohesion amongst us all as a policeman and another man entered the sight. Our minds coagulated with hope of news and directions, our bodies prickled with anticipation of leadership and knowledge of news and direction. We followed the policeman and the other man into the hall.

 

Unfortunately, the announcement was brief – all I can recall of a few sentences made by the policeman is, “It’s bad”. Our collective hope was dashed. The waiting would have to continue until later in the day when the CFA would make an announcement. The policeman the epicentre of our attention departed and the milling and registration continued. My search of how to be of use continued; to the local Anglican priest, to the organisers and deliverers of food, to the girls at the registration tables who too were also from Melbourne and told me they had persistently begged to be put to work. Assisting and assistance was at a premium. When no one wanted my assistance, when I realised I would not be put to work, I was at a loss and decided to give unsettled, dislodged and frightened dogs a massage.

 

 

 

 

In this way I met more people who had had narrow escapes from Buxton and Taggerty. I met people who knew that all their property was gone and that life was now just what they had on. I met people with their homes in tact but their garden had been burnt to a crisp I met people who had no idea of what was left or who was left.

 

I decided to go into town at some point to see what I could do. In the street I came across a man with a happy open expression on his face, a man who looked healthy, a sixtyish man with a full head of silver hair. He stood out from many people I had spoken to and had seen so I spoke to him and asked him why he looked almost happy. He replied that he was from Marysville everything was gone, burnt by the fire. But in contrast he said, “We have an opportunity to rebuild”. “We can decide to have a consistent and cohesive Marysville and create the town we want - we have the opportunity now”. He’d had found opportunity in the face of adversity.

 

My time in the township in of Alexandra was spent in a queue for the one and only telephone booth in the centre of town. It was broken – it would not take money and in turn it would not make connections to mobile phones - frustrating. My time was also spent talking to victims of the fire I was trying to ascertain where we stood,

where, I stood, and what was going on?

 

After four hours of being in Alexandra and after talking to civil authorities, religious leaders, civic groups, locals, Melbournians, families, and survivors, I felt hopeless, useless and afraid. I then had the strongest of feelings deep within me I had to go home. I would go home, I had to have my own bed I had to get away and I would cross the state to do so. I didn’t care how, or how long it took I was going home that day. So with a large degree of guilt and uncertainty but with the utmost determination I decided to get to Benalla and I drove away with Mack in the back seat exhausted. 

 

 

We drove out into the smoke filled landscape. I did not know if we would be stopped by the authorities or if we would get caught in flames and die in the car. I had gambled on my need to get home and gone against what I had been told and what I knew about the roads being closed. I did not know what to expect from the land around me. All I knew was I wanted the privilege of my home and the certainly and comfort of my bed.