Australia: The Fire This Time
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A firefighter taking on the bushfire in Australia (Source: AFP via Getty Images)
On Saturday, the fourth of January 2020, I was in what has been said to be the hottest place on earth that day. Penrith, where my Aussie family lives in New South Wales, Australia, sweltered under a steaming 48.9 degrees Celsius [120.02 degrees F]. It was hot, even with the air-con and ceiling fans on. Outside, on the deck where it felt like an oven, Jack, the Labrador, panted audibly, obviously dehydrated. I gathered water for him to drink from the kitchen tap. It was hot but he lapped it up. I poured water on the deck for him to wallow in and gave him ice cubes to munch on. Poor Jack is an outdoor dog who sheds copiously and must suffer the extremes of Australian weather.
The bushfire warnings were dire. The extreme heat and the wind could be a dangerous combination that could bring the bushfire closer to the city. But my two daughters and I went ahead to have lunch with friends in Springwood, up the nearby mountains where the bushfires were expected to spread. It wasn’t as if we were taking a great risk by driving up there in spite of the warnings. It was such a beautiful day in Penrith, with the bluest sky I had seen since I arrived here a month ago. Since early December, the skies have been gray, overcast, not with clouds, but with smoke from the bushfires that had been raging in the mountains since September. The sight of the blue Sydney sky was such a relief, almost magical, and had to be celebrated in this dreadful season of fire and smoke.
“Sydney is on high alert. The landscape is dry and thirsty after months of no rain, and it looks like the brush could ignite spontaneously. There are “no fires” notices all over the place. The traditional Aussie backyard barbie (barbecue) is nowhere in sight.”
Besides the debilitating heat, the day passed uneventfully, thank God. But it was a different story in the state of Victoria, near the southern border of New South Wales where the bushfire leaped through brush and woods, enveloping entire towns. Residents and tourists had to take refuge on the shoreline and in the water, and had to be rescued by boats that ferried them to safety.
This morning I awoke early to the smell of smoke. The house was still asleep. It was hard to sleep last night, with the temperature still in the high 30s up to midnight. I wondered what had happened overnight. The sky was overcast again. But the thermometer read 22 degrees Celsius. It is as if yesterday’s hellish temperatures never happened. Welcome to the quirky Sydney weather.
Like the rest of the world watching the developments in Australia, I’ve seen footage of the fires on TV and Facebook, and I’ve seen most of what is carried by social media, but I have not seen any actual fires. For now, they are quite a distance from where we live. But I have smelled smoke, perhaps inhaled some of it. The dog’s water bowl has bits of burned grass and leaves that could have flown in overnight as embers, and the front lawn is littered with blackened eucalyptus leaves borne by the wind that has spread the fires elsewhere, not here, but close enough to think about worst case scenarios.
A kangaroo trying to escape the fire in New South Wales (Source: nzherald.co.nz)
Sydney is on high alert. The landscape is dry and thirsty after months of no rain, and it looks like the brush could ignite spontaneously. There are “no fires” notices all over the place. The traditional Aussie backyard barbie (barbecue) is nowhere in sight. Water use is restricted. Once green lawns are parched yellow and cars are left unwashed. Once ebullient flora are left to wilt and dry, to be revived in better climes.
Often, the trains from the city that go all the way to the mountains are unable to reach the Blue Mountains due to the fires ahead. Passengers alight in Penrith and are brought in buses to their destinations.
I have been following news reports about the bush fires, the doomsday analyses by scientists and other experts on the whys, hows, and wherefores of this out-of-control conflagration, and firsthand accounts of families who have escaped the inferno. But where we are, and the surrounding areas, everything still looks normal. We have water, power, a/c, food on the table. The supermarkets, malls, movie theaters and theme parks continue to serve the public. Sydney-siders find relief from the summer heat and the smoke in the malls where retail therapy can take their minds off the creeping devastation all around. And indeed, with the extended Boxing Day sales, life has gone on in the Sydney suburbs.
The public swimming pools and beaches are popular places to hie off to these hot summer days. Except for the smoke, the scent of which is in my hands as I type this article inside my room in the house, and some road closures, there is not a lot to remind a visitor that much of this continent is on fire.
While the local governments of New South Wales are working resolutely to contain its dangers, such as canceling all fireworks displays on New Year’s Eve, I was appalled to see the city government of Sydney go ahead and light up millions of dollars in fireworks at Sydney’s Harbor Bridge, for the rest of the world to enjoy. It was, we learned, a business decision. The economy was depending on the tourism value of this annual event. In fact, thousands of tourists had already flown into Sydney to view the spectacle, while the rest of the world welcomed on television the dawning of the new decade. Sydney was not about to disappoint its audience.
Rescued koalas in South Australia (Source: AP)
But it enraged a lot of Aussies. The fireworks were spectacular, yes, but insensitive, if not obscene, in the light of the property and lives of residents, fire fighters and Australia’s varied wildlife and farm animals already lost to the fires nearby and elsewhere. I sensed a kind of fiddling among the leaders of the government. Initially, they probably hoped the bushfires would end as other bushfires have, quickly and without much incident. The prime minister even found the leisure to fly to Hawaii on holiday while his country burned. And now analysts tell us that the country’s main source of wealth and energy -- coal mining and fossil fuels – have wreaked almost irreparable damage to the country’s environment and climate. This, however, is lost on the climate change deniers who run this country – and much of the world -- today.
We pray for enlightenment for our leaders, as we pray for rain. A look at Facebook shows that most of the world is praying for and with Australia. The weathermen tell us not to expect relief until February or March. I cannot imagine how much longer this community and the volunteer fire fighters can hold out. I am leaving for Manila in a week and a half, and I can perhaps begin to exhale in relief from the stress of living with the fire this time. But how can that be a relief when half of my heart is in Penrith, New South Wales?
Paulynn Paredes Sicam
Paulynn Paredes Sicam is a retired journalist, freelance writer and editor based in Manila. She writes a column for the lifestyle section of the Philippine Star.
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