Remembering Black Saturday

[Lily]

Well, it's twelve months tomorrow, how could any of us forget?

I had my father in Kyneton (north of the highway), completely unaware that a fire was within 6km of his home, brother in North Warrandyte, sister in Ferntree Gully near the highway (embers falling in her backyard) and all of my in-laws at Eildon, unable to get hold of them due to the poor mobile reception in the area. ALL of my extended family were in the "line of fire" so to speak on that day with the exception of my mother in law.

Thank God for the WZ thread that day and the efforts of the people in there, it was the only place I could get relevant information from and relay onto my family members. I felt so damned helpless. We knew in that thread that this was bad, really bad, yet the reports on ABC, 3AW etc. seemed to take a while to catch up, the warnings were out of date by the time they were broadcast... I remember hearing a woman call into the radio from Kinglake, she was with her dogs and said she could see smoke but thought she was ok, the fire was a way off. I felt like screaming at the radio "Get out!". We knew in the WZ thread that the fire front was going to head straight towards them, but they didn't seem to know, they weren't warned

Nine news have a special on tonight, a one hour presentation at 6pm. Here's a clip from ABC from December "Remembering Black Saturday" http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2009/12/18/2775364.htm

I feel like I have so much more to say but can't find the right words... So I'll just leave it at "We will never forget".

[Blackee]

Great post Lily!!

I can still remember the day so vividly it's not funny. We all had time to prepare for the high (myabe not record breaking) temperatures with plenty of warnings and discussion on the forum. It was such a surreal day watching page after page of obs, especially those out west who were getting the really high temps pretty early. I think I went outside the house 3 times that day and it was like I was in a giant oven. Truly amazing and quite confronting!!

When we got news of the Kilmore East fire, about 45mins later I ducked outside and looked north and it was a giant pyrocumulus plume on a day that was cloudless. From that moment, I knew that with the forecast wind change, this was going to get nasty. The family were glued to Fox News which did their best to provide up-to-date info. I was streaming both 774 and 3AW to get on the spot reports and any other info that wasn't being posted by the forum members.

When reports were coming in that places like Whittlesea were under ember attack (many kms ahead of the firefront) it then dawned on me that the wind change would then shift the fire NE and towards Toolangi, Kinglake, Marysville, Black Spur etc etc.

Karl and I sent PM's about the situation as he was receiveing info via CFA pretty quickly.

Then the wind changed, and the on-the-spot reports and calls for residents went from being alert, to being under attack. Some of those calls will stay in my mind forever. The news reports were being fed information that couldn't be confirmed and it sounded like not too many people had been lost. It was only til after dark when crews could go into fire hit areas, did the real story unfold. Tales of amazing survival emerged; confirmation of scores of people deceased trying to escape the firestorm in their vehicle. Small towns almost wiped off the map, Strathewen, Kinglake, Narbethong, Marysville.

It was a day where a part of every Australian died.

Tomorrow, one year on, people are re-building, whilst others have chosen to move on. Red tape and the blame game continues, but this is not the time nor place to get political. We will never forget those who lost their lives. We must never forget those who had their lives changed forever. We will always remain proud of the men and women who put their life on the line against an event that an army 1000 times the size couldn't have stopped.

[mick]

A year ago I made this.



A year later, Im glad to have nothing to add.

[Lily]

Thanks guys. Mick, that was really moving, it's amazing how many of those images have become so familiar to us in the past year. I liked what one person commented:

"it made me realize that we are all just human beings -----mostly ordinary -----and that we still have a looooooooooong way to go to out-wit the elements ----thats if we'll ever get there !"

Ain't that the truth.

We went up to Eildon today, stopped at Buxton for a Buxton Burger on the way home. As we sat there and gazed up at the mountain range immediately in front of us you could see so much new life on the trees, yet there were still so many that are clearly lost forever. In amongst the new builds, there's still people living in cabins, sheds and caravans, making do and making the best of what they have left. Tomorrow will be a hard day for all of them, I'll be holding them in my thoughts.

[Karl Lijnders]

It was probably one of the more traumatic events of my time, reporting on it and being involved closely with the fire services on the day did not make the job any easier.

I must say waking up that morning and walking outside and nearly having my eyebrows singed off by 40C weather at 9am with gale force N winds, it was not going to be a pretty day. And subsequently it wasn't. Days before we were lucky nothing really got going and we needed to survive this day, but it never was to be.

I can recall standing outside and listening to the thunder from the biblical pyro cloud and seeing lightning out of it was something very unusual.

A year on and being involved in over a dozen memorial services and a few rememberance services in the last few weeks, the pain is still there. The rawness is still there and it is something that we don't quite feel here in Melbourne like the country folk do.

It is still something that I will never forget.

[Karl Lijnders]

Currently watching the docco on the ABC which is just insane and heart wrenching. Plenty of tissues in use!!!

[Blackee]

Thanks for the heads-up mate!
Was a professionally put together doco by the ABC.

[Dc449]

Yeah, i watched the last hour, very moving

[Lily]

Damn! I missed it, anyone have a copy or know where I can watch it?

[Karl Lijnders]

Available in ABC stores in April.

[Lily]

Thanks Karl, just in time for my birthday

[Rivergirl]

I think everyone should watch the ABC documentary Firestorm. It was one of the best made documentaries I have ever seen. Starting right at the beginning of that fateful day and moving right through till the present. They traced the fires town by town and showed a map detailing all this as they moved into each place. When they left each town and moved onto the next they showed a blackened forest with the photos of the people that died in that town. The interviews with the survivors were just heart wrenching especially the ones that lost loved ones. They also showed never before seen footage. I was still thinking about this documentary the next morning and feeling as raw as I did a year ago. I know we dodged a bullet that day, as our local CFA captain says, and I still can't believe the Dandenongs survived. We were so lucky.

A very moving video you put together there Mick. Lily, some of your family were a bit too close for comfort. I remember so well Karl how tirelessley you worked reporting on WZ and you could feel the exhaustion and emotion in your reports. You certainly helped a lot of people.

I visited Marysville a few weeks back to have lunch at the bakery cause every dollar counts in the towns' recovery. I went up to Lakes Mountain and photographed the forest there. There were mountains of decimated trees, must have been the mountain ash as they were dead whereas the eucalypts are starting to flourish again. Just the other day I was looking at one of the areas in the Dandenongs where I live that were completely burnt out in 1997 and you'd have to look hard to see that today except for some of the gums that are still a bit blackened.

[Lily]

Inside the Firestorm is now available for download or to watch online http://www.abc.net.au/tv/documentaries/downloads/