Astounding stories of selflessness in fire crisis
FOR the Gold Coast, this is our Notre Dame. Just as Parisians woke on a fine Spring morning to news that the legendary cathedral had been consumed by fire, so too the Gold Coast, only days into our own new Spring season, woke to a similar shock.
Not just that there was a blaze in the Hinterland, but that it had consumed 10 homes, and threatened the very rainforest itself, our greatest treasure.
Bushfires are a feature of much of the Australian landscape. But rainforests, the product of centuries are meant to be immune.
Binna Burra quite literally means “the place of the birch tree”, the home of the imperious Antarctic beech found scattered through Lamington National Park. It’s not meant to burn. We can only hope that, when the smoke literally clears, we learn the doughty, centuries-old timber has stood strong and emerged relatively unscathed.
Not that the omens have been good. The loss of historic Binna Burra Lodge was
piercing, as much for its symbolism as its physical destruction.
News that O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat had to be evacuated as the fire threatened to cut it off completely by overwhelming Lamington National Park Rd created another wave of shock.
But in that distressing moment we also saw, most clearly, an expression of all that has been good in the last seven days.
The spirit that tells us, no matter what damage done, this is a community that will endure as strong as before.
Leaving the resort in such circumstances cannot have been easy for its owners and staff.
But just three hours after the call to evacuate, the O’Reilly family sent a message that spoke volumes. A message not about their own plight, but of solidarity and shared bonds with the devastated owners of Binna Burra Lodge.
“From one pioneering family of Lamington National Park to another, the O’Reilly Family are thinking of the Groom Family at this time,” the message read. “We are still reeling from the loss of Binna Burra Lodge and can’t possibly comprehend the emotions you are going through with such a loss – your mountain home.
“If there is one thing our forefathers taught us is that we are strong and resilient. We know that once the dust settles you will rise from the ashes and rebuild in our beautiful part of the world.”
The message, shared publicly on social media, was accompanied by a picture taken in 1938 on the opening of a track between the two resorts.
It was a sentiment seen repeatedly in this mountain community all week.
Beechmont woman Esterina Segade and her husband were given just 15 minutes to leave as the fire bore down on their home on Friday evening. Instead of using the time to pack belongings, they checked on neighbours.
“We got notice. People were doorknocking. We got a 15-minute warning,” Mrs Segade said. “We didn’t bring anything. We ran and helped others actually.
“My husband helped a family with five dogs, two girls, and brought them to a roundabout to safety while their parents were down at Nerang.”
It was a familiar story, repeated time and again. A community under siege, but united.
“The community is so good,” local Danny Walton said. “Everyone has been helping everyone else out.”
On the front lines, Rural Fire Service volunteers, who made common cause with their neighbours when they could have stayed to defend their own homes.
Away from the scorched mountains, in the safety of the Bulletin office in Southport, evidence that the sentiment was one shared by the wider Gold Coast community.
On Saturday morning, as news spread of the damage wreaked overnight, of the many people displaced from their homes, every phone in the office rang and rang. More calls than could be answered. And all callers asking the same question: “How can I help?”
If we escape this awful fire without loss of life, it will be in large part because of this solidarity and selflessness.
What has occurred in the last few days hurts, and hurts bad. Springbrook and surrounds is our cathedral of beauty – to watch it burn, to smell the smoke, profoundly upsetting.
But whatever the damage, it is a community sure to bounce back. Let’s not forget that one year before the 1938 photo celebrating the opening of the track between O’Reilly’s and the Binna Burra Lodge came the famous crash of the Airlines of Australia aeroplane.
Famous, of course, because of Bernard O’Reilly’s extraordinary achievement in locating the wreckage and rescuing the two survivors.
That same tenacity and selflessness has been in abundant display in recent days. A lot more will be needed in the weeks and months ahead – but this community has it in spades.