On my last day of freedom before starting work, Sarah and I decided to go for a trip out into the bush. Partly to get out of the city for the day, but also to visit Marysville, which was almost razed to the ground by the fires on Black Saturday (7th Feb 2009). At first I felt a bit funny about going, like it was voyeurish or something, but Marysville was once a picturesque village whose economy ran entirely on tourism. Without people going to visit and spend money in their (one remaining, and somewhat understaffed) café there is no way they will ever be able to get back on their feet.
It was humbling. Even though I had never seen Marysville before the fires, it was easy to see what had gone because of the (sometimes peculiar) items that remained. Many of the houses were reduced to a brick chimney-stack, an alarmingly twisted piece of tin roof, and concrete foundations. Bizarrely, most of the mail-boxes and front picket fencing remained almost completely in tact; there were fences and benches that were burned only on one piece - looking like a bite had been taken; signs for shops that no longer existed swung untouched in the wind; a play frame stood untouched in the rubble; the police station sign (the police station completely gone) was melted only on one side; a park bench sat untouched next to the incinerated pay-phone; the playing field looked lusher than any grass I have seen since I arrived in Australia. Everywhere, trees were standing (surprisingly green); some of the brick buildings were still standing (though a couple were new-builds); and weirdly, one lone weatherboard house stood untouched in a clearing.
They’re doing a lot of cleaning up, and there’s dust everywhere while they ‘dozer the rubble so they can rebuild. The regrowth of the natural area (trees, plants, grass) has been so quick that the whole area is so green that you could almost think that it happen years rather than months ago. It took me a while to realise the track that I was looking down was once a proper street. There are so many trees. It really must have been terrifying.
We also headed to Kinglake, which looked much the same, and beyond, to where no one had been living, and where the regrowth hadn’t occurred. The trees were a see of blackened stumps as far as the eye could see over the undulating land. It was strangely beautiful. Driving through the bush was interesting – so many remnants of old fires, trees with blackened trunks everywhere. Fires are just part of the natural circle of life in the bush, it is just such a shame when they destroy the livelihoods and lives of so many people.
Just a little background – on 7th Feb max temperatures in and around Melbourne were up to 23 degrees (celcius) above the February average, and in many places was the hottest day on record. Melbourne City recorded 46.4 degrees, but the highest temperature reached that day was 48.8 degrees. Unfortunately, there were also fierce hot dry winds – gusts of 115km.h were recorded in some places. Though the wind speed did drop later when the wind changed direction, there were still gusts in excess of 50km/h for some hours afterwards.
Southeast Australia has been in drought for some time now, and the relatively low humidity and super hot temperatures had dried out the bush to the point where it was like tinder just waiting to be ignited. Bushfires in Australia spread as a thin front of flame – they normally pass a spot in 30-60 seconds. Unfortunately, when the wind suddenly changes direction (and because of the natural flow of air, it normally changes by 90 degrees), the long side of the fire suddenly becomes the front of it. Terrifying.
This year, more than 170 people died, and 2000 homes were destroyed. In previous bushfire years the death toll has been less – Ash Wednesday 1983: 71 in Victoria and South Australia, and 62 in Tasmania in Feb 1967. Now that I am working for the Bureau of Meteorology, I now have access to more information than I did before, and I am realising just how tragic the bushfires in February were. Previously it was a little hard to compute.
