It was, by this point in the late afternoon, unfathomable that things could get worse. But they did. Up until now, the blaze had been steadily pushing south. In fact, there was a rising fear it might even reach the city of Melbourne - God forbid because - as we all knew, once we were in a dense urban firefight with many close houses involved, it would become infinitely more dangerous - for us and the population.
So perhaps the change was a good thing? Sometimes I lay awake at night - over two years on now - wondering - what would've happened if the winds hadn't changed? To us, the wind change made things infinitely more difficult - but we have NO way to know if, had they not changed, if more lives would've been lost. What if the fire HAD reached the outer suburbs of Melbourne? What if it'd pushed on and on - destroying countless metropolitan houses and buildings and inflicting itself on people, who, by virtue of location, were not prepared? How many more lives would've been lost? Would we have been hindered by utter traffic chaos and accidents? We all knew full well that the MFB, good as they are, are not equipped for wildfire fighting - so we knew they'd be little help except with individual structures - their vehicles are made to pump massive quantities of water from a direct source like a hydrant. By virtue of this, they are great in a fixed location - like a house fire. But they are not able to move and fight a running fire like a tanker can. In fact, I dare suggest, with no disrespect intended, that the MFB may have even been endangered - unable to move fast enough to keep up with a fire and protect themselves. Their vehicles are not equipped for self-protection as there is little need. They have a couple of pumper-tankers - equipped with a small amount of tanked water for small grass fires (say, at local reserves) or car fires on a freeway - but with no real design to allow them to still fight while moving.
This, I will touch on later when I discuss why we didn't rely on MFB assistance greatly...more then.
But at this point, it was plainly apparent that conditions were changing. But without a reliable update, we had no idea how much. THIS itself led to a life-threatening situation...the subject of my next post.
As it happens, the state control units knew the wind change was coming. They did all they could to alert us. Pager messages were sent - but these didn't arrive for over 12 hours due to the massive congestion in the system. Maybe this gives an indication of how many calls and alerts were being sent - that a system that sends instantaneous messages across the state daily, 24 hours a day, was behind to the effect of over TWELVE hours...
Radio alerts were sent. But we were monitoring several channels that were flat out - and we were trying to listen for Mayday and immediate life threat calls first - namely, other crews in trouble, trapped residents and finally, "red flag" alerts - the alert sent for a wind change. Several maydays were received from crews in the line of fire or even caught between fronts - the fire was spotting (ie, throwing embers forward that light into new fires) for multiple kilometres and crews were becoming trapped between multiple fronts. In each case, we were trying to work out, as quickly as we could, if we could help them or not - a delicate balance between risk ourselves getting there, or leave our own to possibly die...risk being a congestion or crowding the area...or not do anything and live with the guilt.
It was an unspoken, forgone conclusion that at least one member of the fire service would die in this campaign. It happened almost every other year - and sadly, before the campaign was over, one firefighter was dead. But...amazingly...whole crews weren't. This itself is simply nothing short of a miracle. Again, more on this later - including how it was LUCK as opposed to any action, yet was hijacked as a political point...
It is an awful situation to be put in. It's a common code in the fire service that we help our own first. If a fellow firefighter is in trouble - you go straight to him or her. Some people outside criticise that - but think about it...to do this job, we need to know everyone has our backs. If we can't rely on that, what can we rely on?
So it was a horrible situation - wanting desperately to help the number of "Mayday" calls received - but having to weigh that up with the other logic of "a dead hero is no help to anyone" - meaning that we can't help anyone if we doom ourselves in the process.
The wind was swirling now. It felt like we'd been in it for days. I started to become aware of the odd flash here and there and, to my utter horror, realised that it was LIGHTNING - but not a storm. The fire itself had become so incredibly powerful that it was generating massive convection - this convection and evaporation of any trace of water on the ground - not to mention the tonnes being dropped on the fire - was actually creating it's own weather front.
I have never seen anything like it. I knew it was theoretically possible - but to see a fire front actually creating its own STORM clouds was just unbelievable. But there, in the mass of smoke rising above the sea of inferno - was lightning, striking down in front of the fire and now, creating further spot fires.
Literally, things had gone from as bad as possible - to worse. I seriously started to feel I was seeing something straight from Hell itself. Not only was this monster fire invincible, but it was creating it's own dry storms - regenerating itself with lightning...of it's OWN creation. Like a self fulfilling prophecy. You can forgive me for wondering if Satan himself was creating this - it was positively demonic.
We rose to the top of a slight ridge and looked out across the valley. Inside there...it was engulfed. There was no longer a firefront as such - the ENTIRE valley was a literal sea of flames. It was a firestorm. Massive trees were just exploding into flame, burning, then crumbling to ash in moments. What was left of the trees was swaying frantically, like some wind was battering them from all directions. There was no fire FRONT and blackened behind - the whole valley was alight....
But what was worse was peering through the trees - and realising I could see houses. Several houses...deep in the valley. In the absolute heart of this fire storm, being utterly engulfed. At this point, I was physically sick and it took an enormous effort to stop myself from vomiting. I knew there were people still down there - we had been told minutes before in a general message to respond to calls from people in the valley who were trapped by a "ring" of fire around. Now we were there - it was engulfed.
I couldn't close my eyes or even look away. But as I stared, tears formed and stung deep in my eyes as I bit my lip to hold them back. Staring at the houses - knowing there were people still there being incinerated. I will never forget that moment...standing there like an idiot...motionless, silent, holding myself up against the truck and holding back nausea that was hitting me in waves now. It was like something out of a movie. I found myself mumbling "this cannot be real...this isn't real..." over and over and over. But I knew it was. And there wasn't a thing I could do. All I could hope now was that they had died quickly - because I knew there was no way they'd lived. As I watched, the fire started climbing the hills on both sides. One group came flying up the hill on our side in an open-roof 4WD. Four on board and clearly panicked - yelling at us "there's people still down there!!" before taking off again...
Up until this point, I'd held a tiny shred of hope that lives wouldn't be lost but staring down into that valley...seeing the flames engulf the whole thing at once...that hope in my heart died.
At the same time, multiple crews were suddenly running into dire danger - and little did I know it, but within the hour, we would be fighting for our own lives.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Day One - Five Minutes to Focus...
It's been a matter of months since I've got around to updating...
I've been procrastinating, somewhat. This journey itself has been cathartic - but as I explore, rehash and in a sense, relive the experiences, it's been challenging to say the least. In some ways...I haven't been able to write more yet. Writers' block, in a sense - but more psychological. There are distinct parts of the whole event my mind has blocked out for good reason. Some, I have recalled. Others - there are just gaps, like temporary amnesia.
Frankly, it terrifies me to wonder what was in those gaps. I cannot for the life of me remember, so my mind puts it down to being best to not know. Like I blocked them out for my own personal protection. There are some things one is simply best not to remember.
In the time that has past since I last wrote, I've finally been getting some help to deal with all this. That itself has been an intensely private journey. I can still only speak to a select number of people personally about it. People find out I was there - and they ask me "how was Black Saturday?" and I just find myself...failing to find the words. Sometimes...I can't say anything at all. I don't know if that'll always be the case or not - but some things that happened that day, I just cannot repeat verbally.
This is why writing about it is so helpful for me. I can release here what I cannot find in me to talk about. Some of the absolute horrors - whether graphic or whether more psychological (such as general vibes). By writing...I let it out of the box...and learn to let go. I'll never forget. This event has defined a part of me. Changed a part of me. Forced me, at a young age, to come to horrendous terms with the realities of life and death. Forced me to perhaps grow up much faster than others my age. But...such is life. I am digressing now.
So...to move on.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I slumped back in my seat on the tanker, my mind felt paralysed. Like...I was utterly incapable of processing what was happening to me. Everything was moving around like a whirlwind - images of what I'd seen so far...images of those I cared about and who I felt I was "protecting" by doing this for my state. The physical pain of the day was punishing - I was, as we all were, severely dehydrated. Burning from the heat of the fire and the 50 deg day. My face windburnt from searing heat and my throat burning from smoke. That overpowering smell of just smoke.
I became...acutely aware that the smell of the smoke wasn't normal. When one fights fires for a while, you start to know what things smell like. A house fire smells different to a bushfire, which smells different to a car fire. But this didn't smell like just a bushfire. It was a shocking conglomerate of many, many smells. I never quite worked out what - but I think I know. There was so much being burnt. Later that night, I worked out what I could smell so acutely - and that smell...will never leave me. The only way I can describe it is the smell of death on an unimaginable level. Human death...animal death. The environment was turning positively apocalyptic and more than once, the thought crossed my mind that this is what the end of the world would be like.
Only really now, I was starting to come to grips with the fact that this fire was not only out of control - but literally unstoppable. In my years of fire and rescue before, NO event, no fire, had been unstoppable. Out of control, certainly, but there was always a quiet, unspoken knowledge that we could control it. Not this. I was finally starting to understand - this event was beyond ANY human control.
There was a helplessness about it all. I felt so small all of a sudden. Just....one man, on one truck. When helicopters dumping thousands of tonnes of water a seconc cannot control or even slow a fire - what can one truck...what can two hundred trucks - expect to do? For the first time ever...I felt truly out of my depth. As the paradoxically youngest, yet most experienced firefighter on my crew (most of the rural guys, and no disrespect to them, get to maybe one, two fires a year - I managed an average of a callout or two a day for several years) - they were turning to me for some kind of unspoken guidance but during my five minutes of focus, I couldn't muster it.
No words would do justice. My face betrayed no emotion. No sadness, anger or anything. I was totally neutral and silent. Stunned into silence.
We drove only a short distance, but it felt like forever. We felt hopelessly deep in the forest even though I knew we weren't. My captain was driving, and he obviously knew were we were - I had no idea. I'd given up even bothering to try. At that point, we could've been in New Zealand for all I'd known. We were supposed to, by rights, go through the burnt land to find a place to draw water but it was just too dangerous - it was impossible. The front now stretched for kilometres.
Little did I know at the time but in the coming hours, the combined fire fronts across the state would be spanning HUNDREDS OF KILOMETRES OF FIRE FRONT. It's still mind boggling.
So we withdrew into the just-as dangerous unburnt forest. Stately gum trees and small shrubs drew back to a small clearing, marked with a single white post at a slight lean, and a red "Fire Water" sign. A murky dam lay in front.
But something was wrong. Normally this part of the forest would be serene. Peaceful, quiet, harmless. But today - it was like everything knew. There wasn't a bird in sight or animal. The only sound was the wind, howling through the trees - a ghostly sound. An ominous sound. The smoke was blanketing the sky again - billowing across the sun and blocking it out. The sun itself was now more like an eclipse - a yellowish ring, flickering through the dense black smoke that was not so much billowing as positively flowing south, forced on by 100km/h northerly winds.
The whole thing was unnatural - but there was no time for reflection. Just work. We silently, efficiently, offloaded the draughting hoses and without a word amongst us, starting putting them together. I remember getting irrationally frustrated that the connections wouldn't quite sit right; evidently they hadn't been used in a while and I remember silently swearing at "whichever c--t" was supposed to have checked them. In my frustration at the lack of utter control of the situation, I just about wanted to drop the two hoses and kick the coupling as hard as I could, as if somehow (?!) that would help. But I resisted the urge and forced them together...
We finally got the hose hooked up to the truck too. I grabbed the greasy piece of drag rope and started dragging the suction end to the water. Losing my footing a little, suddenly, my arms started to sag and I felt myself running out of energy. Like I just wanted to drop them. I closed my eyes for a moment - mentally taking myself to a happier place - but all I could see was frustration, fear, anger. Fear manifesting as a blind rage at the situation as a whole and the feeling I could do NOTHING about it at all. But I composed myself.
I finally got the hose into the water, after what felt like a massive feat. In reality, it wasn't - it was a routine refilling task. I realised this and started to get a grip on myself. I stood back, lit a cigarette and silently offered one to my captain who silently accepted.
The wind was swirling, gusting and howling and the sun becoming more and more obliterated. It must have been later afternoon by this point - and little did I know, but the north winds were starting to shift and be combated by a south-westerly. The pagers were incessantly alarming to the point I was blocking them out - I just didn't want to know. Again, the irrational anger as I felt a sense of injustice that the triple-zero (our emergency number, for anyone from overseas reading) dispatchers were just loading us up with more. I closed my eyes...hoping it was all just a bad dream...
At this moment, I found a calming image deep in my troubled mind. Somewhere there, I went back, just for a moment, to when I was younger. I remembered a book my parents had given me - King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. I had always loved medieval times - for all the primative conditions, there was something fascinating and captivating about the stories and legends.
At this point, I for some reason thought of this story. Thought of the bravery of men who may never have existed - and how those knights would face this. Resolved to be brave too. Then I remembered one of the images - beautifully drawn - from the book. It was the "lady of the lake" - for those who aren't familiar with the story, King Arthur throws his sword, Excalibur, into a lake - from which a lady's hand emerges, holding the sword high. The sword was his saviour - and I imagined my hose to be my own personal Excalibur - my weapon, my saviour in this crisis. I briefly imagined the beautiful lady in white - in my mind, tall, svelte, kind. Long, flowing blonde hair. In no way did I imagine her sexually - but as some kind of bizarre comfort. Like a guardian angel.
I came back out of my brief daydream somewhat renewed. Resolved. Ready to fight on. Feeling I had a sword to battle this unimaginable evil - and a guardian somewhere. Maybe this sounds like the "castles in the clouds" of a madman (excuse the Les Miserables reference) - escapist fantasy. Perhaps it was. But I needed it.
I am a firm believer that in our minds, under major duress, we regress to younger times - or at least, happier times. I believe much of our life is shaped by our childhood - hence why, I believe, those who turn inherently violent, abusive or evil have unstable, violent and broken childhoods. Me though, I was very lucky to have a loving, caring, disciplined and focused upbringing with many happy memories - so my temporary regressions were to a more carefree time when my biggest worry was whether I could stay up to watch TV or play cricket outside after dark.
It's funny what you think of under major trauma...
During this time, we'd finished filling the tanker. We all seemed to move so painfully slowly to undo the hoses - but I don't believe we were. Just the calm professionalism of a good crew. Tempered from rushing by shock. Adrenalin completely overridden by shock, fear and revulsion.
Finally, we climbed aboard the truck and began making our way back to the Gates of Hell - the firefront itself.
I've been procrastinating, somewhat. This journey itself has been cathartic - but as I explore, rehash and in a sense, relive the experiences, it's been challenging to say the least. In some ways...I haven't been able to write more yet. Writers' block, in a sense - but more psychological. There are distinct parts of the whole event my mind has blocked out for good reason. Some, I have recalled. Others - there are just gaps, like temporary amnesia.
Frankly, it terrifies me to wonder what was in those gaps. I cannot for the life of me remember, so my mind puts it down to being best to not know. Like I blocked them out for my own personal protection. There are some things one is simply best not to remember.
In the time that has past since I last wrote, I've finally been getting some help to deal with all this. That itself has been an intensely private journey. I can still only speak to a select number of people personally about it. People find out I was there - and they ask me "how was Black Saturday?" and I just find myself...failing to find the words. Sometimes...I can't say anything at all. I don't know if that'll always be the case or not - but some things that happened that day, I just cannot repeat verbally.
This is why writing about it is so helpful for me. I can release here what I cannot find in me to talk about. Some of the absolute horrors - whether graphic or whether more psychological (such as general vibes). By writing...I let it out of the box...and learn to let go. I'll never forget. This event has defined a part of me. Changed a part of me. Forced me, at a young age, to come to horrendous terms with the realities of life and death. Forced me to perhaps grow up much faster than others my age. But...such is life. I am digressing now.
So...to move on.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I slumped back in my seat on the tanker, my mind felt paralysed. Like...I was utterly incapable of processing what was happening to me. Everything was moving around like a whirlwind - images of what I'd seen so far...images of those I cared about and who I felt I was "protecting" by doing this for my state. The physical pain of the day was punishing - I was, as we all were, severely dehydrated. Burning from the heat of the fire and the 50 deg day. My face windburnt from searing heat and my throat burning from smoke. That overpowering smell of just smoke.
I became...acutely aware that the smell of the smoke wasn't normal. When one fights fires for a while, you start to know what things smell like. A house fire smells different to a bushfire, which smells different to a car fire. But this didn't smell like just a bushfire. It was a shocking conglomerate of many, many smells. I never quite worked out what - but I think I know. There was so much being burnt. Later that night, I worked out what I could smell so acutely - and that smell...will never leave me. The only way I can describe it is the smell of death on an unimaginable level. Human death...animal death. The environment was turning positively apocalyptic and more than once, the thought crossed my mind that this is what the end of the world would be like.
Only really now, I was starting to come to grips with the fact that this fire was not only out of control - but literally unstoppable. In my years of fire and rescue before, NO event, no fire, had been unstoppable. Out of control, certainly, but there was always a quiet, unspoken knowledge that we could control it. Not this. I was finally starting to understand - this event was beyond ANY human control.
There was a helplessness about it all. I felt so small all of a sudden. Just....one man, on one truck. When helicopters dumping thousands of tonnes of water a seconc cannot control or even slow a fire - what can one truck...what can two hundred trucks - expect to do? For the first time ever...I felt truly out of my depth. As the paradoxically youngest, yet most experienced firefighter on my crew (most of the rural guys, and no disrespect to them, get to maybe one, two fires a year - I managed an average of a callout or two a day for several years) - they were turning to me for some kind of unspoken guidance but during my five minutes of focus, I couldn't muster it.
No words would do justice. My face betrayed no emotion. No sadness, anger or anything. I was totally neutral and silent. Stunned into silence.
We drove only a short distance, but it felt like forever. We felt hopelessly deep in the forest even though I knew we weren't. My captain was driving, and he obviously knew were we were - I had no idea. I'd given up even bothering to try. At that point, we could've been in New Zealand for all I'd known. We were supposed to, by rights, go through the burnt land to find a place to draw water but it was just too dangerous - it was impossible. The front now stretched for kilometres.
Little did I know at the time but in the coming hours, the combined fire fronts across the state would be spanning HUNDREDS OF KILOMETRES OF FIRE FRONT. It's still mind boggling.
So we withdrew into the just-as dangerous unburnt forest. Stately gum trees and small shrubs drew back to a small clearing, marked with a single white post at a slight lean, and a red "Fire Water" sign. A murky dam lay in front.
But something was wrong. Normally this part of the forest would be serene. Peaceful, quiet, harmless. But today - it was like everything knew. There wasn't a bird in sight or animal. The only sound was the wind, howling through the trees - a ghostly sound. An ominous sound. The smoke was blanketing the sky again - billowing across the sun and blocking it out. The sun itself was now more like an eclipse - a yellowish ring, flickering through the dense black smoke that was not so much billowing as positively flowing south, forced on by 100km/h northerly winds.
The whole thing was unnatural - but there was no time for reflection. Just work. We silently, efficiently, offloaded the draughting hoses and without a word amongst us, starting putting them together. I remember getting irrationally frustrated that the connections wouldn't quite sit right; evidently they hadn't been used in a while and I remember silently swearing at "whichever c--t" was supposed to have checked them. In my frustration at the lack of utter control of the situation, I just about wanted to drop the two hoses and kick the coupling as hard as I could, as if somehow (?!) that would help. But I resisted the urge and forced them together...
We finally got the hose hooked up to the truck too. I grabbed the greasy piece of drag rope and started dragging the suction end to the water. Losing my footing a little, suddenly, my arms started to sag and I felt myself running out of energy. Like I just wanted to drop them. I closed my eyes for a moment - mentally taking myself to a happier place - but all I could see was frustration, fear, anger. Fear manifesting as a blind rage at the situation as a whole and the feeling I could do NOTHING about it at all. But I composed myself.
I finally got the hose into the water, after what felt like a massive feat. In reality, it wasn't - it was a routine refilling task. I realised this and started to get a grip on myself. I stood back, lit a cigarette and silently offered one to my captain who silently accepted.
The wind was swirling, gusting and howling and the sun becoming more and more obliterated. It must have been later afternoon by this point - and little did I know, but the north winds were starting to shift and be combated by a south-westerly. The pagers were incessantly alarming to the point I was blocking them out - I just didn't want to know. Again, the irrational anger as I felt a sense of injustice that the triple-zero (our emergency number, for anyone from overseas reading) dispatchers were just loading us up with more. I closed my eyes...hoping it was all just a bad dream...
At this moment, I found a calming image deep in my troubled mind. Somewhere there, I went back, just for a moment, to when I was younger. I remembered a book my parents had given me - King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. I had always loved medieval times - for all the primative conditions, there was something fascinating and captivating about the stories and legends.
At this point, I for some reason thought of this story. Thought of the bravery of men who may never have existed - and how those knights would face this. Resolved to be brave too. Then I remembered one of the images - beautifully drawn - from the book. It was the "lady of the lake" - for those who aren't familiar with the story, King Arthur throws his sword, Excalibur, into a lake - from which a lady's hand emerges, holding the sword high. The sword was his saviour - and I imagined my hose to be my own personal Excalibur - my weapon, my saviour in this crisis. I briefly imagined the beautiful lady in white - in my mind, tall, svelte, kind. Long, flowing blonde hair. In no way did I imagine her sexually - but as some kind of bizarre comfort. Like a guardian angel.
I came back out of my brief daydream somewhat renewed. Resolved. Ready to fight on. Feeling I had a sword to battle this unimaginable evil - and a guardian somewhere. Maybe this sounds like the "castles in the clouds" of a madman (excuse the Les Miserables reference) - escapist fantasy. Perhaps it was. But I needed it.
I am a firm believer that in our minds, under major duress, we regress to younger times - or at least, happier times. I believe much of our life is shaped by our childhood - hence why, I believe, those who turn inherently violent, abusive or evil have unstable, violent and broken childhoods. Me though, I was very lucky to have a loving, caring, disciplined and focused upbringing with many happy memories - so my temporary regressions were to a more carefree time when my biggest worry was whether I could stay up to watch TV or play cricket outside after dark.
It's funny what you think of under major trauma...
During this time, we'd finished filling the tanker. We all seemed to move so painfully slowly to undo the hoses - but I don't believe we were. Just the calm professionalism of a good crew. Tempered from rushing by shock. Adrenalin completely overridden by shock, fear and revulsion.
Finally, we climbed aboard the truck and began making our way back to the Gates of Hell - the firefront itself.
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