The spectre of devastating fires lurks at the boundaries of the Australian imagination, writes ANGELA LONG.
MARYSVILLE – A pretty place, verdant, hills all around, a cutesy main street with coffee and gift shops. Think Enniskerry or Kenmare for Irish equivalents. At least, that’s what Marysville was.
Now the town of 500 is just the remains of one building poking up from smouldering ruins, like the remains of a belief that modern, technologically adept Australia might have acquired an equal footing with the elements.
The spectre of devastating fires lurks at the boundaries of the Australian imagination, like the bush and desert which wait outside the high-rise cities scattered in a ragged chain around the edges of the continent. In the heat of the Australian summer, when dry winds rage from the west, tinder-dry forest cover is the fuel for conflagrations that consume homes and sometimes lives. But the 171 people who have died in Victoria is a new ghoulish record, marking a deadly alliance of unsurpassed high temperatures and the dysfunction lurking in the minds of a tiny number of fire-obsessed individuals.
Once it was Black Friday, two words that summed up the fear of fire, referring to a January day in 1939 when 71 people died. It had been Friday the 13th. Then, Black Friday was overtaken 26 years ago, on a February day that became known as Ash Wednesday, when 75 perished in Victoria and South Australia.
I was driving with my father, back from the beach, on that day, driving along a baking highway parallel to another road we knew was studded with fires. But we didn’t know till we got to the safety of our inner suburban home that 47 people had been killed. It could have been us. A fire like the ones that have been rampaging through Victoria takes on the characteristics of a monster in a horror fantasy, leaping across the earth with invisible jet-propelled strides. Many people have died in their cars when fire suddenly fell upon them, devoured the vehicle, and moved on. Stay at home, the official advice always was. In the summer, make sure there are no leaves choking up your guttering, that foliage is trimmed well away from the house. Have plenty of water handy.
But when people see the billowing black cloud, feel the hot ash stinging their eyes and choking their throats, smell the burnt flesh of wildlife, flight can win out over fight, and they run to their cars to escape.
And now, what grim nickname will these days earn? Death and destruction at Wandong, Kinglake, Whittlesea – picnic destinations of childhood, where we bushwalked or rode horses or just lazily watched farmers at work. All in our safe Australian bubble, on the edge of the world, sure that nothing happens here.
The people interviewed on television have nearly all played to the stereotype, few words, taciturn, being as upbeat as possible. Some are even chirpy. Perhaps they are in shock. They’ve seen horrifying sights like the four cars, at crazy angles, burnt out in the middle of a road, and bodies in houses, children’s skin scorched like napalm victims.
Prime minister Kevin Rudd, a calm man, visibly upset in his screen appearances, reached for comforting words and somehow, with a florid choice, hit the right note. “Hell in all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria.” Awkward as they sounded, they have been taken up and captured the sentiment.
But another, sharper feeling was also voiced by Rudd, calling any arsonists and firebugs “mass murderers”. The mindset of these people is perverted and impossible for others to understand. A Melbourne psychologist told me during a previous, less deadly, spate of fires that it is not uncommon to find firebugs in the ranks of volunteer firemen. “The fascination with fire is there, and when it is absolutely forbidden the attraction becomes irresistible,” she said.
Another reason, attributed to one of the recent fire-layers, was resentment that his group had not been chosen to tackle a vicious outbreak, where TV cameras were attending. The Royal Commission that has been announced into this disaster will have human nature and the natural world as its not inconsequential subject matter.