Four Fires (66 page)

With the experience I'm getting working for the Forestry Commission, Mr McDonald says he'll be happy to recommend me for a job when I've finished school. He says they're looking for bright young blokes they can send to university, because forestry is becoming more of a science.

But I dunno, I've seen what Sarah's been through to get a university education and I don't think I'm up to it. Probably haven't got the brains anyway.

This is also Sarah's final year at university. She's kept on being brilliant. Meanwhile, Morrie's just become a doctor for the second time.

Mike is thinking of going to London, but I'll tell you about that later because we're all worried and not sure he should do it and Nancy starts to bite her fingernails whenever the subject comes up. She can't tell Mike he can't because he's been away in Melbourne too long and has his own life to lead and is no longer dependent on us. But she doesn't want him to go. She wants to know what's wrong with what he's doing now? Him and Sophie are going really well, especially the Suckfizzle label for kids. But all Mike says is, 'Mum, I'm a glorified dressmaker, no one will take me seriously here until I've been overseas and come back as a designer.'

When I'm up in the fire tower reading away and stopping every once in a while to scan the horizon and take the measurements for the log book, wind directions, relative humidity, cloud condition and

the temperature, Anna Dumb-cow-ski will come into my mind. I can't help thinking about her and that she's somewhere in England with Crocodile Brown and won't be studying for her matriculation with our class this year. I try to imagine what she'd be doing. I mean Crocodile Brown isn't a very interesting bloke and he must be at least thirty-five years old!

Everyone thought Anna would be one of the top students in the state, like Sarah was, and now
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look what's happened. Perhaps Crocodile Brown, being a teacher, will see she goes to school and does her final exams in England, though it would be pretty weird, I mean, you know, with him doing it to her and her being a schoolgirl in her spare time, wearing her sports uniform.

When I think about all this, I get this big, almost physical, shock, I just can't believe she was on with Crocodile Brown all of last year.

Nancy says that with this weather, anything could've happened. It's the heat and that bastard Chicka Barnes that's turned Anna's mind, the poor girl, coming from Europe originally. Maybe Chicka Barnes, yes, but the bad heat only really started in November and Crocodile and her must have been on together long before that.

I sit there looking over the Scribbly Gum thinking, unable to get Anna out of my mind, not only the lust factor, which I admit is always there when I think about her and her being so beautiful as well, but also her, little Anna Dumb-cow-ski. Sometimes sitting alone in the tower thinking about her, I have to whip the old man out to get a bit of relief. But Anna's more than that, it's her, she was about the nicest girl I've ever known. Everyone loved her, grown-ups as well as us kids and she was going to be the head prefect and everyone thought she was the perfect choice, the best any of us could remember. I'm sure she could've done better in life than old Yellow Teeth, Crocodile Brown. I keep asking myself why, why, why?

Tommy and me went out on Saturday. Despite the heat and it being blackfella weather, Tommy wanted to check on the combustible fuel that's lying about within a large stand of Mountain Swamp Gum, Eucalyptus camphora, growing at the base of some hills about eight miles from town. Later, if we've got time, we'll also check the Eucalyptus camaldulensis, River Red Gum, running along a dry

watercourse into Reedy Creek. Tommy says a fire starting here among the bigger trees and running along the dry course would be just about the worst thing you could imagine happening.

There's tall grass on either side and what with pasture improvement the fire danger is way up.

The gully would be like a lighted fuse heading up towards the town and the grass fires would be like a pincer movement on either side.

Yankalillee is set among the hills so that fire can travel at a fair pace. It's been months since there's been any rain and the natural fuel in the two forests we check is that dry, it cracks like a rifle shot underfoot. It's been like this since Christmas. The grass in the open country and on the north-western hillsides is completely cured, all it needs is a spark and it will go up in a huge swoosh, then practically nothing will stop it. Tommy reckons the grassland carries about one ton of fuel per acre but the fern gullies and the western slopes of the hills carry as much as three tons.

The two forests would easily average ten tons per acre as well as the burning bark that can be carried away in a convection column sometimes for miles to start new fires. It's the worst imaginable situation. We get home and Tommy goes straight off to see John Crowe.

For once in our lives we know everything's ready at the fire station because we've been through all our drills last Saturday and checked the gear. I know it sounds silly but I even check the rope on the fire bell, which you can hear all over town and every firefighter knows its sound. When that rings it's never good news. Fire bell's only rung for one thing, fire. Once a group of yobbos rang it in the middle of the night and Jack Donovan somehow got a hold of them and they got three months on the hill. There can be no mucking about when it comes to fire.

Well, the weather yesterday cooled down a fair bit and was down to eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit with a light north-westerly blowing, which sounds pretty good after the heat we've been through. But if you're an experienced bushfire fighter, a cool day in the middle of a heatwave is not necessarily good news.

So last night, as usual with periods of high fire danger, Tommy and me listened to the national weather report on Bozo's radio and what we heard filled us with a sense of dread. There's a cold front that's made its

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way across the south-east of South Australia and is coming towards Victoria. 'Oh shit!'we both exclaimed.

Today it's hot as hell again, but the first four hours pass uneventfully. The temperature at noon when I do my routine measurements is ninety-seven degrees. The cloud cover is cumulonimbus, people call it cumulo around here but Tommy says we've got to say it right. The wind direction is north-west with a Force Three wind with occasional gusts to Force Four.

These sudden gusts are what drives a fire faster and makes it unpredictable. There's not a lot else happening but the interference on the radio is building, that's always a sign that there's worse to come.

It's been bad news from dawn when Bozo and me got up to do the garbage; already the wind was blowing hot and strong from the northwest. About half-past seven, when we got home from washing the truck at the abattoir, the ABC news predicted thirty mile per hour winds for north-eastern Victoria and said that bushfires had started in the Chiltern bush overnight. They issued the usual high fire alert for the whole state, which was the same as they've done every day since mid-December. The Chiltern fires are not good news and Tommy looks at me and says,

'London to a brick, it's our turn soon, Mole.'

The day starts with a clear sky the colour of pewter but around nine-thirty cumulo clouds begins to form in the west. I watch as the clouds grow up into their towering anvil shapes that you know come before a thunderstorm. What the cloud means is the atmosphere has become unstable, anything could happen. Hopefully it will be rain, lots of the stuff.

The cloud doesn't tell you too much either. For the past two weeks there's been cumulus come up in the right direction for rain and there's not been a drop fall anywhere in the district. When I get to the tower, I heard on the HF again that fires had broken out in the Chiltern bush during the night. About ten in the morning, the smoke from the Chiltern fires about ten miles off starts to make visibility difficult from the tower.

After doing the noon schedule I call on 2792 KCS, which is Mr McDonald on the HF radio, and give him the report. He'll call the brigades in the CFA region and pass on the information. The crackle

on the radio is pretty bad so I can only just make out his return report to me. He asks me if I could give him any accurate information on the Chiltern fire and I say it's hard to tell, the smoke is coming directly towards me and reading the distance is difficult. He says they hope the back-burn being set to the north of Chiltern will protect the town, but it's a big fire, to keep my eyes peeled.

I don't need to be told that real shit could hit the fan any time now, the conditions are just about perfect for a bushfire of major proportions. With the bush at Chiltern already a big blaze and several smaller fires started in the district, our turn could be next. I scan the horizon with my binoculars and my heart skips a beat, I think I've seen something. So I have a look through the telescope, which isn't that crash hot, being war surplus and probably as old and worn as the Diamond T. The visibility isn't good, maybe ten miles, not much more, but it turns out simply to be drifting smoke from the Chiltern fire or maybe one of the smaller ones, there's nothing new.

At one o'clock I check all my readings and see that the temperature has risen to 102 degrees and there's a rapid fall in the humidity to nine per cent. The cloud cover is now beginning to really build up, though still slowly and there's been a change in the wind speed.

I start checking on the Chiltern fire and move around about ninety degrees scanning the horizon but I'm having difficulty penetrating the haze. There's a fair bit of dry lightning around and I think briefly how lightning is attracted to the highest point in an area, which is the tower I'm standing in. It all seems okay but then I lower the binoculars a little and, there, to the south-east, I see the small unmistakable plume of new smoke.

I know the area the plume is coming from pretty well, Tommy and I have passed through it often enough. By my calculations, the fire seems to be in the vicinity of a small tributary of
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Reedy Creek close to Hopeless Dig. Jesus! It's about the one place you wouldn't want a fire to start! I take the bearing which is at 220 degrees and, with my heart pumping, I get onto the HF.

'VL3FD Mt Pilot calling VL3FD Yankalillee. Do you read me? Over!'

'Yankalillee to Mt Pilot, reading you 3 by 4.' It's a woman's voice. The girls at the Forestry Commission headquarters operate the incoming network.

'Smoke report Mt Pilot. Bearing 220 degrees. Approximate distance ten miles. Location in the dry tributary which runs into Reedy Creek, near Hopeless Dig. Over.' It's how you're taught to do it, each piece of information separate so it doesn't become confused.

Then Mt Stanley cuts in, 'VL3FD Mt Stanley to VL3FD Mt Pilot. Affirmative smoke report.

Bearing 340 degrees. Over.'

It is nice getting the affirmation from Mt Stanley, it means I've got it right. The girl at the Forestry Commission repeats my message, which she gets correct. 'Affirmative. Over and out,' I say, feeling pretty pleased with myself.

But the feeling doesn't last long. I'm conscious that the Forestry blokes will all be out at the other fires and that we'll have to call out the CFA volunteers and it looks distinctly like we'll have to go it alone.

I hope to God that Tommy isn't in the pub, though with fire around he's usually pretty good. I'm yelling at the radio operator at the other end, hoping she'll hear me through the interference, the static is terrible. I'm busy plotting the fire on the map as I talk and check the wind direction. It's blowing the fire in a direct line to Yankalillee, no mistaking it. I check again, trying not to show the panic in my voice.

'This is Mt Pilot Tower to Yankalillee, do you read me? Over.'

There's crackle, then nothing so I call again. A faint voice comes through the static, 'Go ahead, Mt Pilot.'

'Fire in the vicinity of Hopeless Dig along Reedy Creek, 220 degrees, Mt Pilot Tower. The wind direction puts Yankalillee in its direct path, wind velocity thirty miles an hour,' I shout, even though we're taught to talk normal because that will cut through the static better, I'm that nervous I can't help myself. There's a lot of crackle and I repeat the message twice over until I finally hear, 'Wilco, over and out.'

Suddenly Bill Breadcake at Mt Stanley Tower chips in, 'I see it, Mole! Good on ya, mate, the bearing here is 340 degrees.'Then Mr McDonald confirms, 'You've got it right, Mt Pilot, Hopeless Dig, we'll need all the volunteers we can get, there's River Red Gum right along that tributary, there'll be a lot of fuel. Mole, there's a fair bit of lightning around, you better come down.' The amazing thing is that this all comes through pretty clear, which is the HF for you, sometimes calling in is terrible but the receiving can be clear as a bell.

'Please, Tommy be sober,' I beg aloud, looking to the heavens. 'Mate, we're all in a lot of shit, the bastard is heading directly for us.'

I can hear the wind beginning to pick up as I get onto Bozo's bicycle.

chapter nineteen

I reckon I've never pedalled this hard in my life, my legs are history by the time I get to the brigade headquarters and, as I get off my bike, I topple over. I don't mean faint or anything, it's just that my pins don't want to hold me up. I guess the adrenaline rush is all but used up.

John Crowe and Tommy are already at the bushfire station sorting things out and I give a sigh of relief when I see Tommy is sober. He watches me get up from the dirt, brushing my backside with both hands, looking sheepish. 'Gidday, what kept ya?' he says. 'Thought we'd have to leave without yiz.' can see he's proud of me for being the one to spot the fire.

I look over to where a bunch of kids are quarrelling about who is next to ring the fire bell, 'Bell's still goin', calling fighters in.' I grin, 'You old blokes need a bit of time to get goin'. Did ya bring
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my overalls?'

In the ute,' he says, nodding to the direction of John Crowe's utility. Then he looks up at me real serious. 'What ya reckon, son?'

It's in among the River Red Gum, looks like a tributary of Reedy ^reek, maybe two hours away, heading straight for Yankalillee, could be a big 'un.'

We'll make a stand at Hopeless Dig,' he says immediately, 'be our best chance.'

Tommy's good like that, he's known exactly where I'm talking about and sees the surrounding country in his mind's eye. 'Yeah,' he

says, spitting into the dust at his feet. 'Reckon you're probably right, there's a lot of fuel in the creek bed.' He goes over to talk to John Crowe, who listens then nods.

The men are beginning to come in fast now, utes lined up. Most are already in their overalls and broad brims, many bringing their own shovels and rakes. We never have enough of these in the fire shed, some have their own knapsack tanks and hand pumps, they don't trust the maintenance crew (don't blame 'em). Several utes and a couple of four-wheel-drive, ex-army jeeps are towing a furphy, bringing their own water supply. Be great if every ute was towing one. The messenger's jeep is standing by with its engine running, Hugh Spencer, the driver, standing next to John Crowe.

Everyone knows his team and they wait for their mates to arrive, anxious to get going. No point in hanging around when there's an angry fire coming your way. It's usual to send a scout out in a jeep to check the extent of the fire and confirm its whereabouts, but that can take anything up to two hours. Often, with a midafternoon fire like this one, the fighters only get to the fire just before dark. Fighting a fire at night is an even more dangerous business and John Crowe decides to wait no more than another half an hour for everyone to assemble.

John has complete faith in Tommy and he knows that I also know the area, the chances are we've got the location exactly right. Besides, it's already been confirmed by the Mt Stanley Tower. He'll leave the map reference with Mrs Thomas, the switchboard operator, and Marg O'Loughlan, the

'hello girl' at the telephone exchange, for any latecomers and for the Eldorado mob if they come in to help. Both women will be staying on duty until the last ember is out and they probably know more about the communications needed to direct a big fire than we do.

Mrs Thomas and Marg are just two of the remarkable country women Mrs Barrington-Stone often talks about who don't expect any praise at the end when us black-faced firefighters come in exhausted and get all the pats on the back.

It's the same with the Red Cross Catering Group and the CFA Women's Auxiliary. Nobody ever stops to think that they've been up eighteen or twenty hours fighting the fire as well. I have to admit I didn't think about it until it was pointed out by Mrs Barrington-Stone.

It's always women who make the sandwiches and the hot soup and cups of sweet tea, grill the snags, take the messages and co-ordinate the various brigades.

Then there's the wives of firefighters left on lonely farms who have to care for the kids and dogs, the stock in the paddocks and, if they're in the path of the fire, prepare the house and stay put until the fire has passed over or organise the evacuation. It's only when you start to think about all this that you realise there's more to fighting a fire than smacking its bum with a fire-broom.

We hear the cop-car siren, which means Big Jack Donovan is on his way. I reckon we should have a siren instead of a bell as a fire alert, an air-raid siren like the ones you hear in movies of the war when the Germans bombed London. They sound like there's a real disaster on its way and it could be the end of the world and you better get ready to meet your Maker. Any bell sounds like a church bell even though the fire-station bell has a different sound and you can't mistake it, but it's still a bell. You know what I mean? Bells don't sound urgent enough. Or anyway I don't think they do.

When I hear the bell at St Stephen's going for Mass on a Sunday morning, I imagine Father
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Crosby standing outside the church in the dawn light. There'll be frost on the bit of lawn and he'll be in his soutane ringing the bell for early Mass, unshaven, bleary-eyed, with a hangover from too much altar wine or from drinking someone else's whisky. He's probably still got his pyjamas on underneath his smelly soutane and his balls will be freezing, like ours are most winter mornings doing the garbage. Meanwhile, all the old biddies in their scarves and woolly underwear and knitted gloves are making their way across town to the church. If you ask me, the church bell's about the least-urgent bell you can possibly think of for something like a bushfire that could be threatening the whole town.

Big Jack's job is to direct the traffic if there has to be an evacuation of the town and he will already have phoned Wodonga and Wangaratta in case he needs extra police to help him, though Chiltern will get first Pick. He is also in charge of the St John Ambulance and the Red Cross emergency units and, if things get really out of hand, he can ask Mr Sullivan, the prison governor, to bring out the prisoners to help.

We can take six men on the back of each old 'Blitz' fire truck and two in front. It's a helluva squeeze and a big load, what with knapsacks and fire-brooms and a big pile of pre-soaked hessian bags and the tanks carrying four hundred gallons of water. We never get much above twenty miles an hour out of them, which is enough to stay ahead of a bushfire on an open road but in rough country it can get dicey. Anyway, it doesn't get you anywhere in a hurry, that's for sure. Then, if we reach any sort of incline, we all have to hop off and walk.

The main bulk of the teams will go ahead in someone's ute, which is much the better way to get to a fire. They'll all have filled up their knapsack hand pumps, which will last them until we arrive. Driving the two ex-army 'Blitz' trucks, the Chev and the Ford, is important, but no honour I can tell you. You're the first to leave and the last to arrive. They only do about four miles to the gallon so you have to take extra

petrol as well.

Tommy drives the Chevrolet because he's doing a favour for his mate, and the other truck is driven by Whacka Morrissey, an old-timer who knows its ugly ways. Both trucks are manned by Catholics and Nancy says that's because the Protestants are not stupid enough to be caught in the two slowest vehicles in the bushfire brigade. She may have a point.

We're all standing outside in a widish circle getting a briefing from John Crowe. There's five brigades in the Owens Valley Group. There's Yankalillee of course, then Wooragee, Bowmans-Murmungee, Gapsted and Mudgegonga, altogether about three hundred volunteer firefighters. There must be over two hundred already here and the others will turn up pretty soon.

John Crowe clears his throat, he's got a big voice that carries so nobody has to draw that much closer. Well, boys, this has all the makings of a big bastard. Nick Reed has just phoned from Wang, there's fires reported bloody everywhere. Chiltern bush is up in smoke, threatening the town, that's where the relief brigades are heading from Wodonga and Wang. I told him we didn't know the extent of the fire Mole's reported and we'll give him a bell if it's bad. John Crowe laughs, 'He said he didn't like our chances, there's fires at Mount Buffalo and the Myrtleford boys have got their hands full-

Bright's got the same problem and we can't expect any help from the Forestry boys, they've got more than they can handle as it is.' He looks around, taking in most of the circle. 'He's got Eldorado on stand-by, but we can't count on them, they may be needed elsewhere. Looks like we're on our own, it's volunteers alone for the time being at least.' He shrugs, 'Don't need to say much more, you all know the drill. Anyone here that's new?'

Two blokes put their hands up. A young bloke from a farm near Allan's Flat, who gives his name as Lindsay Jarvis, and an older bloke, Michael Mooney, a Collins Street cocky who's big in
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insurance and has bought a place near Myrtleford and is probably going to prove to be more of a hindrance than a help. Tommy sighs next to me, nobody wants to have to keep an eye out for a rookie. All of us have read Mooney correctly, or anyway, we reckon we have and so there's no immediate volunteers. Inexperience is one thing you don't want fighting a bushfire.

'Righto, we'll take Mr Mooney/Tommy says, breaking the ice. Tommy doesn't want the poor bloke to be standing there like a shag on a rock.

Quick as a flash Alan Phillips from the Wooragee Brigade says, 'Old Merv O'Hare carked it two nights back, we'll take the young fella.' There's a bit of a laugh among the men, Alan isn't known for his subtle approach. The Jarvis family are well known in the district and they're all bushies and he knows this well enough, he wouldn't have a bar of the Mooney bloke on his team. If the Jarvis boy proves a keen youngster who can take orders, he'll stay with the Wooragee Brigade permanently.

Okay, boys, let's be off then, we're heading for Hopeless Dig.'John Crowe tells us to meet half a mile across the bridge over Reedy as most would know roughly where it is. He says all this matter-of-fact, like it's a cricket match or something.

It all sounds pretty reasonable, like we'll just go in and douse the flames. But it ain't. Fires don't work like that, even small ones. With fires things change so quickly, you've got Plan A all worked out and next thing you have to change everything, and not to Plan B because you can't anticipate what that is. Firefighting is about quick judgement coming from experience and that's what makes a good fire captain,

some bloke who can call a fire more or less right. Nobody gets it exactly right.

With John Crowe and Tommy both on the job, I feel a lot safer. To be in Tommy's team, even though it's on one of the fire trucks, is a great honour. I haven't always been with him because he wanted me to gain experience with other teams, he still thinks that maybe one day I'll be the real maloney. Now I'm with him and it's good because I've never fought a fire that could be as potentially big as this one.

I'm excited, of course, fighting fires sort of gets into your blood, but you're not stupid enough to be disappointed if it turns out not to be as bad as you thought. There'll be three hundred fighters out there before long and, if Eldorado joins us, that's another fifty. It's not very many if a bushfire gets out of hand. Everyone knows it's up to them to do their best.

The good thing so far is that we know where the fire is coming from and that it's following the dry creek bed. As yet it hasn't hit the open grassland that's stacked with high-combustion fuel.

It's midsummer and the grass is up to your knees and sometimes well beyond, and all of it tinder-dry. If the fire stays the way it is (fat chance), we can fight it on a fairly narrow front and concentrate all our efforts in more or less the one place.

The big problem is that this is a eucalyptus fire and that can travel fast. What we'll be looking for is a break in the trees growing along the creek, some area where the creek bed is bare of any growth for maybe a couple of hundred yards. What we'll do then is back-burn the grass beyond the line of trees on either side of this bare strip a hundred yards or so and hope that the burnt ground will halt the fire spreading into the grassland beyond. Also, the hope is that the gap in the creek between trees will be extensive enough so that the fire can't jump the bare earth and connect up with the trees on the other side.

If we get that lucky and the fire doesn't get into the grass and doesn't jump, three very big 'ifs', then we've got a real chance. The chances of finding a break in the tree line with bare earth in between is not zero but we'll be bloody lucky if we do. Yet that's what we'll be looking for.

If the River Red Gum stretches uninterrupted along the creek four fires 503

we've got Buckley's trying to stop it until we get to the gorge just outside of town. Even then we'd be in trouble because the gorge runs right through the centre of the bushland reserve, which carries a lot of big old eucalyptus trees and there are houses right up to the edge of the
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reserve.

There are two major types of bushfire, a forest fire and a grassfire. What we've got on our hand so far is a forest fire. A grassfire is probably the more dangerous because it can change direction on you in a second or combust behind you and trap you, but it's fairly slow, travelling around seven miles an hour. A good forest fire can go twice that speed, which means if we can't stop it somewhere along the creek, it could be on the outskirts of Yankalillee in less than two hours. By my reckoning, the fire is approaching at around six miles an hour with wind gusts of about thirty miles an hour. It doesn't sound fast but over rough terrain the two fire trucks will have a lot of difficulty staying ahead. We try to keep the Blitz trucks together, it's safer that way, what with the vaporising always being a problem.

Since the fire trucks are so slow, John Crowe goes ahead with the teams in the other utes and we follow behind. The story of Hopeless Dig goes that a bloke named Simpson found a gold nugget worth a thousand pounds there in 1865 and sparked a bit of a gold rush to the site. The creek must have been running that year because the miners set up camp beside it and chopped down all the trees and dug up the ground so thoroughly that not even the River Red Gum came back. Except for a little alluvial gold panned lower down in Reedy Creek, Simpson's site was as barren as a nun's tit and yielded not an ounce of gold and so was named Hopeless Dig. Had Simpson been around, the mob would have strung him up on the spot since it was clear that he had found the nugget elsewhere and was protecting the original site. However, by that time, he'd already cashed in his nugget and bought dry goods and was last reported to be running a store in Gulgong, New South Wales, where gold had been found, and was making a packet.