As our convoy wound through the streets, I found myself in a strange mental daze.
I was recognising where I was - but not, at the same time. I had limited idea where I was going and virtually no idea what I'd face or how long it would take.
It was a strange, disconnected feeling of a different reality - a twisted, vicious nightmare come suddenly to life.
I found strange thoughts crossing my head. Noticing the town was virtually deserted - probably due to the extreme weather (the winds now steadily above 100km/h and gusting far, far more, and the heat over 50 deg C) - it felt strange. Like suddenly myself and my crew were the only ones left on some ghost planet or post nuclear apocalyptic wasteland; like a movie where all life was gone and just structures remained along with a harsh wind and new atmosphere.
The oppressive heat remained but the sky was darkening. A mixture of dust and smoke - SMOKE - I realised. The smoke was a harsh shock to the system. Like a confirmation...as if some part of my subconcious psyche was holding out on the hope that this was all just a big mistake, a big false alarm...
It's acrid smell tracing across the city as we travelled out now through the highway, gaining speed and literally feeling the truck being buffeted hard by the north winds - as if God himself was trying to push it over. The smoke was not dense - just traces and the majority high above and being wound up, thrown around the sky with minute traces of black ash. But all it took was the trace of a smell to smash my hopes - and feel my heart sink as I accepted my final defence against this growing horror had failed.
A smell I couldn't pinpoint, I realised...
Each fire has it's own unique smell. Several years of unfortunate practice have given me the innate ability to detect whether smoke smelt of a grass fire, forest fire, the strange, plastic-fuel combination of a vehicle fire, or what I felt was the distinct smell of a house fire (particularly, weatherboard). I don't know really how to describe the difference. Little more I can say but I just know - just as any person experienced in his/her field can tell you things that they just "know". The smell was there but it was...different. Like a conglomerate. I think at the time I realised this was because of a mixture of burning textures - buildings, vehicles, forest, grass, scrub - and, I hate to say this - but flesh. But right at this point I didn't realise or didn't WANT to realise that. So I just tried, pointlessly, to ignore it...
As the truck picked up speed along the highway, the mixture of the winds blowing against us and of course, the forward speed momentum and natural noise generated when one is sitting under an open canopy on the back of a truck seemed to grow rapidly in intensity - virtually drowning out my thoughts. It was a strange peace - I was finding it too hard to think on account of the noise and took the moment's solace to reflect.
Suddenly, I felt cripplingly tired. Weary before the battle had even begun...(if only I'd known).
I found myself alternating between the occasional glance to my right to my companion - his stony silence and ashen-looking face reflecting my own concerns - then to my feet as if fixated by my boots - then skyward - to the sun, which was becoming an eerie shady of blood red - then to the surrounds.
We passed a police roadblock - the officers standing silently and respectfully as we passed, their faces impassive. I looked them in the eyes as we slowed by...I think, now, attempting to glean some kind of support from fellow responders. Animosity about being caught speeding and silly stunts in my younger days aside, I have the upmost respect for the police. They do an incredibly difficult job, day in, day out - dealing with the absolute scum of society. They remain calm under enormous pressure and constant criticism from the arm-chair cops who seem to know it all and write into the paper daily about their misguided views. They face some of the situations I'm not sure I could bring myself to face - that is, having to break news to families of their loss. I looked to them, I think, hoping to draw some of that strength from their reserve but all I saw in their faces was the same concern - and indeed, what was expressed to me later by a young constable; respect for US for doing the frontline work of tackling the fire itself.
I'll be saying more at a later date about the role of the police in the response to Black Saturday...but for now, let it be known that my personal view is that of utmost admiration. I can laugh or gripe about getting caught speeding or told to turn my house stereo down by them, but when push came to shove, I believe they did a remarkable job - and I still feel empathy to this day for outed Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon who was crucified by an angry public and misguided media looking to ride the wave of pain and rage.
As we passed the road block, I realised suddenly how alone we were. A highway normally constantly flowing with dense traffic - absolutely still and silent. Houses we passed were gradually thinning out as we left the urban density behind and reached the edge of town/country. All around though, there was not a sign of life.
Strangely, it reminded me suddenly of medieval castles - closing the drawbridge and battening down the gates for a war. This image brought a flicker of a smile to my face, imagining my town in feudal times...but the pleasant thought was tempered by the realisation that people were taking shelter against the catastrophic threat - or had already evacuated, as evidenced by empty driveways and open garages...
The seating arrangement in the older tanker I was on meant that myself and my companion were facing rearward - our backs to the cabin and looking back down the road. Occasionally, I strained against my belt and the wind to look around the edge of the ROPS and see up the road ahead but found myself blinded each time by wind and dust. It served to increase the tension - as I knew every passing second, the firefront was growing and we seemed to be travelling so slowly. In reality, I knew we were well over the 120km/h mark, as fast as we could safely push the truck - but it might as well have been a crawl. I just wanted one glimpse at what was approaching - just a few moments to prepare myself mentally and psychologically. It was borderline torturous not being able to see! At least when I responded to jobs in my usual vehicles, I was seated in the cab and could see forward - see a rising plume of smoke or flame and prepare myself. Here...I had no idea.
I took stock of the situation and my nerves. Realising I couldn't feel any sweat, I knew I must be dehydrating fast and attempted to drink - finding holding down water a struggle against the insistent fluttering of butterflies and the ominous lump in my stomach. I tried hard to distract myself with positive thoughts but my attention persistently returned to the pending doom. I attempted to focus then on my actions. Realising I was only going to be efficient fighting the fire if I focused on what I was going to do and resolved with my mind to "deal with the emotions later".
Focusing hard on the pump control panel directly in front of me...running over and over in my mind of the basics - when we pull up and see the fire, I will stand. Ensure my own personal protective equipment (PPE) is comfortable and fitting. Activate the pump and run it up to optimum output. Open the hose feed valves. Grab my appropriate branch (that is, the fire name for a hose connection basically). Remembering my basic wildfire tactics - both of us on one side of the truck facing the fire - the driver would advance slowly and the one with the first-attack branch would attempt to simply knock down the flames with a strong jet of water while the second one would follow up with a fog-spray pattern, attempting to douse the remainder. The objective being to move in a line, constantly parallel to the firefront and knock it down as it moves.
Over and over in my mind it raced. Knock down - move on. Knock down - move on. My partner and I had agreed that I'd take the first branch. He quietly admitted to me that he wasn't comfortable on the first attack and, due to a weaker shoulder and several years age advanced on me, had less upper body strength to maintain a firm grip on the jet. I was happy with this agreement. I felt useful and I liked being on first-attack. I found it comfortable to brace myself up against the forward most corner of the work area on the truck and lean into the fire, and satisfaction at knocking it down.
My biggest weakness was remembering to keep my hose focused on the fire in front - I tended, especially in my early days, to turn to the side and try to mop up too - effectively, doing both our jobs for us but earning me regular bellowing from the driver to "keep the fucking water FORWARD!" - until I learnt and overcame my habit to attempt to do it all.
Yet with all this in mind I was not comfortable. I had already surmised in my mind that while the tactics that make the Victoria fire service a world leader in wildfire firefighting are great, this would be no normal grassfire. Speed alone would mean we would struggle to keep ahead of the flame front - and the above tactics would only be safe if the fire were to "break out" from the forests and race away through the grasslands, in which case we could try to pursue it and knock it down.
I realised too what a Catch-22 was being presented. The fire could be best and safest fought on the grasslands - that is, moving quickly in a line along the front, knocking it down at multiple points. A team of five tankers would fan right out - each taking on several hundred metres of front, and this could knock down up to a kilometre of firefront FAST.
However, forest firefighting is a whole different ballgame. Forest firefighting was heavily reliant on aerial bombers, and I simply had no idea if they were coming. Plus, it was slow and heavy - the fire world equivalent of trench warfare; with a lot of effort for limited progress. A crew would move very slowly through forests - with the focus being a joint effort between stopping the fast moving firefront that was on the ground, burning up "fine fuels" (grasses, branches, leaves) and then alternating to the trees themselves - spraying them up and down several times before moving forward.
Additionally, forest firefighting is DANGEROUS. In a grassfire situation as the fire races across open land, if it's getting too hot and dangerous, you can withdraw easily - just find the quickest route out or to the sides to flank the fire. In a forest, you can only safely work from rudimentary tracks - whether logging paths, fire water paths (e.g. tracks that lead to dams), national parks maintenance roads or just campers paths.
It was very risky to stray from the path - simply as you don't know when it will just stop at a dead end (first rule of fire survival - know your way out BEFORE you find a way in). This was then not counting the risks of a rollover on soft or unsafe terrain (often hidden under dense grass) - or being struck by falling trees and branches. I know these two sound silly to non-firefighters. I know because I've been asked. But they are both killers and have killed numerous CFA members in the past 20 years. Partly because to fight wildfire, we are STANDING on the back of a MOVING truck. If it rolls, frankly, you're fucked. If you get thrown, you're lucky - you might get clear. If not, you are crushed. As for falling trees - the only firefighter death in the Black Saturday campaign was due to exactly that - burnt and damaged trees are LETHAL.
There's a reason all tankers carry a can of pink spray paint - with which, during the mop up, we'd paint trees rated as dangerous with a bright "K". K = killer. K = keep away until chainsawed down! Look up and live applies equally to trees as it does to powerlines when it comes to firefighting...
Not to mention the other obvious threat in a forest fire - the fire itself. While a grassfire builds up rapid speed and consumes it's "fine" (i.e., light) fuel fast - a forest fire burns more slowly but far more intensely - drawing enormous energy from the trees. If it is right up to the level of crowning fires as I previously discussed, the fire can be literally "overhead". Otherwise, though, it is burning a fron that is many metres high, hot and intense. Not as fast but...you'd be surprised.
This is a fact that was sadly hammered home in the 1998 fire campaign at Linton, near Ballarat. A Geelong West crew were working in dense forest, became trapped on the dead end path and were burnt out and died. RIP to those five men. Your sacrifice, let it be known, has not been in vain.
So in "modern" times, the CFA is cautious about fighting fires internally in a forest for the above reason. But that also depends on lives under threat.
These thoughts rolled around in my mind. What would it be? I knew it'd be a mixture of both by the local geography. We were always told to speak up if you felt unsafe - and the whole crew will back down (e.g., going into a forest fire, if one member is unhappy, the tanker must withdraw). But I did not want to be that one person...especially if lives were at stake.
It hit me hard, suddenly, what a decision I would have to make. I did not want blood on my conscience - but I knew too that many heroes are dead heroes...and a dead hero helps none. Would I speak up if I was unhappy? Or stay silent and see what happened?
We grew closer. I realised I'd been vacantly staring off down the road, oblivious almost to the fact that the smoke was intensifying, FAST. It was becoming thick, rolling clouds of smoke, obscuring roadway vision and, I realised, getting to the point that at times, all I could see of the tanker close behind was it's headlights and beacons through the murky grey. It was ethereal - unworldly. No sign yet of the fire but billowing smoke and the sunlight was turning a strange mixture of orange and blood red.
Quite frankly, it was disturbing. I felt my limbs tension, my back and neck stiffen...knowing that with the quantity of smoke present, the fire was likely to be fierce. Any hopes of some kind of wind abatement were gone - whisked away with the floating black ash and soot that too was intensifying.
If I remember nothing else, it was the striking feeling of looking up again, focusing on the world around and seeing the change of colour. I realised, suddenly, that the sky was no longer showing a single patch of blue - and the sun was virtually invisible - now too, just a blood red orb. The world had taken on the blood red/orange/yellowish tint - and I was NOT liking it.
In the background, I tuned in as the radio noise intensified. Constant and unrelenting calls and directions being given by leaders to strike teams - stop here, turn there, go there, etc, etc, as well as calls for clarification. All urgent but calm and in a still official but controlled tone of voice. I listened closely for details - morbidly hoping to get a glimmer of genuine feeling from one of the crews - a sworn outburst, mentions of what was actually HAPPENING. I didn't, honestly, give a fuck where I was going - all I cared was what was happening there. I listened intensely for mentions of structures or people...
Then it seemed to begin out of nowhere. I short, sharp message from a local tanker crew advising as calmly as they could muster that "multiple houses are fully involved - estimate up to ten - nil signs of life...*pause*...we're trying to...trying to get close enough to look but the front is too strong, too fast". This call cut short by another crew leader advising of cars on fire.
Then again, I felt my skin crawl and blood go cold as I heard a call noone wanted to hear - directed to a tanker crew - "crew ****, if you are at **** Road, please proceed to numbers *** through *** - Vicfire advises triple zero calls from these houses approximately 90 second ago indicating people are TRAPPED. Repeat...people trapped at...". For obvious reasons, I cannot say where I was.
Suddenly, I realised how serious this was getting. It truly had gone from bad to worse.
My crewmate turned to me. Looked me in the eye...and in a deadpan tone, spoke.
"Mate...I think we've just stepped into fucking Hell here."
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