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.
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