KIWIS IN AUSTRALIA TELL
TALES OF SURVIVAL AND BRAVERY RISE FROM THE FLAMES AND ASHES
‘We’ve never had fires like this’
It looks like hell on earth – walls of flames stretching high into the air, incinerating everything in their path as they sweep across tinder-dry tracts of Australia. Animals and humans alike are being forced to abandon everything to the mercy of one of the worst firestorms in modern history.
“We’ve never had fires like this,” says Adele Lewis, a Kiwi who fled the flames threatening her home near Byron Bay. “It’s ghastly hearing the screams of the koalas. It’s a very strange and eerie atmosphere.”
As many expat Kiwis seek refuge in New Zealand, a fresh wave of our firefighters last week bolstered the exhausted Aussie fire teams who had been battling more than 100 blazes.
So far 26 people have lost their lives, with more still missing. An estimated one billion animals, including farm stock and wildlife, have also died in the uncontrollable fires that span more than 15 million hectares, combined.
Armed forces from around the world are helping out with the large-scale operation to quell the flames, which have been raging since September last year in some states. This includes the New Zealand Defence Force, which has also supplied three air force helicopters to support relief and recovery efforts and two army combat engineer sections.
In total, 179 Kiwi firefighters are now standing beside their Aussie counterparts.
Victorian Country Fire Authority deputy chief and former Otago woman Stephanie Rotarangi says there’s no immediate end in sight to this “unprecedented” fire season.
“The fuels are so dry and the fires so large that there is little opportunity to put these fires out.” The vast scale has also seen the blazes terrifyingly create their own weather and move in an unpredictable manner. The New South Wales coastal town of Mallacoota bore witness to the ferocity and volatility of the fires on New Year’s Eve. With no time to evacuate, thousands were forced to take refuge in the sea as a firewall bore down and sunlight gave way to darkness in apocalyptic scenes.
While there are many months of work still ahead, morale among firefighters is still strong.
“People are trying hard to look out for each other. Kicking though the ash of a home that belongs to a firefighter who is out there protecting someone else’s home is profoundly difficult, but then you get the best of the human spirit with that as well. It really does shine through,” tells Stephanie.
Kiwi expat Helen Okey (51) has been helplessly watching events unfold from her parents’ home in New Plymouth. She lives in Rosedale, south of Sydney, where 60 homes are reported to have been lost.
She flew to New Zealand for Christmas and said it had been surreal tracking the path of the fires. Her partner Steve had
remained behind, and spent time at an evacuation centre.
“When I left the South Coast, I wondered aloud if it would look the same when I returned. Steve reckoned there was a 50/50 chance I would have a house to return to.”
They were lucky. The fire destroyed a neighbouring property but theirs was spared.
Adele (61) has lived at Iron
Pot Creek, inland of Byron
Bay, for 30 years. She fled to her sister’s home in Wellington and says she is unlikely to return to Australia because of the fire threat.
“We’re on standalone solar and tanks. We couldn’t afford to keep buying water. The property is safe at this stage, but if fires reignite, there would be no water to fight them.
“What’s there [then] to go back to?”