LETTER OF THE MONTH

A MiNDFOOD reader shares her firsthand experience and thoughts relating to the recent devastating bushfires in NSW.

Whilst holidaying in London in 1904, a homesick, 19-year-old Dorothea Mackellar wrote: “I love a sunburnt county, A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and fl ooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea, Her beauty and her terror – The wide brown land for me!”

We’ve read or heard it and we all know Australia is what she describes.

My little village of Harrington, NSW started to burn on 28 October. It’s happened before, so I was a little blasé. My children rang with information. I replied, “Thanks, I’ll be fine”. They called in, the last time at 1am, saying the local caravan park was being evacuated. I was still up, waiting for any distress call.

I had bundled my chickens into boxes, to sleep in the garage. I’d put my ‘must-haves’ into a suitcase in the car boot, throwing in some clothes and shoes, my folder of legal papers and a bag of odds and ends, knowing my computer would fit neatly beside it, if necessary. I’d dragged three large plastic tubs, marked ‘Memories’, from my storeroom, fitting them neatly across the back seat. The chooks would squeeze in, on top. Done. Ready to evacuate when told. I sat up late and dozed in my lounge chair most nights, boxing my chooks at dusk to bed them down next to the packed car.

How did I feel? It affected all of my senses. I saw flaming trees and skies. I heard sirens and helicopters and the constant smell of fire smoke. Fallen leaves crunched under my touch and it seemed everything I drank or ate tasted of burnt embers.

The day I entrusted my chooks back to their pen, I stayed alert for any predicted wind change. A girlfriend rang to chat about it. I told her, “I feel something I haven’t felt for a while, but am looking for the right word for it”. Our exchanged words said we felt a real fear, a calamity ahead. Not quite doom, but the devastation that was unfolding had us feeling more than anxious. When first sighting helicopters and planes flying low over my backyard, I gave a teary thank-you wave to the pilots. Silly, I know, but I felt useless. More helicopters joined them and behind my closed doors their rotor blades made the muffled sound of a remembered Vietnam War, where school chums had fought and some not returned. This is what my mixed senses were doing to me; having odd things jump into my mind without my asking for, or wanting it. Then, Politics and Climate Change tried to make themselves our most important issue. My head said, ‘Journalists, Politicians and Scientists, step back from your microphones. Let us beat these fires first, and save what can be saved. Only then, when we collectively catch our breaths, should we debate.’ And then I will say: Australia is a sunburnt country. With fires and droughts and flooding rains. That will not change. Climate is forever changing. These fires highlighted many of our errors. I feel we need wider fire trails, we need burn-offs in winter. We need properties in dense areas to be properly identified and stricter building codes in fire danger areas. We especially need to always large dams, preserve supply our more water, and build better equipment, and make water desalination plants a major priority. When ‘My Country’ was penned in 1904, Australia’s population was estimated to be just under 4 million. In 2020, it stands at more than 25 million. That’s over 21 million more people on our sunburnt land. We must protect our people, in basic, uncomplicated ways that we all Australia prepared. understand. and Because We will need always we to live be be in waiting for the next drought or flood or fire. While adhering to Stage 4 water restrictions, my arms ached from carrying shower water to my plants. But I continued to save that bucket of water daily, while waiting for the warm water to flow. That’s not complicated. Our fires certainly affected me, making my uneasy mind take in the effect.