Story by Julie Vulcan. After the fires have past, leaving a trail of devastation, we often forget what happened before, in the lead-up. This is a telling of that before, with all its signs, preparations, anxiety, frustration and emotion. It is more than a story, it is also an offering of lessons learnt, things that worked, and things I hold dear. Continue reading Reading the Signs: My Year with Fire
Story by Sophie Chao. This poem fleshes out the lifeworld of the endangered Gilbert’s potoroo since settler-colonization and in the aftermath of the Black Summer. The poem seeks to celebrate the ecological significance of the Gilbert’s potoroo within Australian ecosystems. It also traces the various forms of violence that have been inflicted upon this species by human actors, whose activities increasingly threaten the potoroo’s environment and future. Continue reading Ode to the Gilbert’s Potoroo
Story by Dr Jonica Newby. A story of blood-red skies, accidental heroes, a disaster-movie-worthy action sequence, and an incongruous encounter with the film Frozen as ordinary people confront towering fire fronts the size of nightmares. (extracted from Beyond Climate Grief, New South Publishing).
Continue reading Horror
Story by Nicole Webster. Our first child was born on New Year’s Eve 2019. It was a time of mixed emotions for us as we welcomed our daughter into the world before we realised that we could not return to our old fibro home because it could not keep the smoke out. Continue reading Home, Smokey Home
Story by Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute. This documentary film explores the 2013 bush fires that devastated the Blue Mountains townships of Winmalee and Yellow Rock, and documents the recovery of the community afterwards. Continue reading Fire Stories 2: Living with Risk
Story by Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute. This documentary film explores the impacts of the catastrophic fires in 1957 on the Blue Mountains community in Leura. Continue reading Fire Stories: A Lesson in Time
Story by Anonymous. This story discusses the reaction of the Rural Fire Services’ Incident Management Teams (IMTs) to the Gospers Mountain Fire in 2019. Continue reading Duty Tells
Story by Kim Grace aka Amos O’Henry. Christmas 2019 saw large areas of the East Coast of Australia burning, including in the Blue Mountains. Kim Grace watched these fires with growing apprehension; he had seen it all before and just hoped that this time he would not lose everything. Continue reading Blue Mountains on Fire, 2019
Story by Kim Grace. Kim Grace was a child when the 1967 fires destroyed his home, town and most of the State of Tasmania. The fires, and the events that took place afterwards, were mostly buried in his subconscious until he returned to Snug 30 years later. Continue reading Black Tuesday, Tasmania, 1967
Story by Elizabeth Morgan. What’s it like being the meat in a fire sandwich? I spent two months on the edge in the 2019-2020 summer as two megafires – in the Blue Mountains – Gospers Mountains to the north, Green Wattle Creek to the south – raced towards each other, the firefront sometimes gaining 12 kilometres a day. Continue reading Two Months On The Edge
Bushfire Stories 