On Monday 23 February, a savage bushfire began 200 metres from darling Kate, Brendon, Indigo, Jarrah and Pepper’s property. Labelled the ‘Musk Vale-Hogans Road’ fire by the Country Fire Authority, it spread to involve 2,658 hectares, and at its peak 95 appliances, hundreds of firefighters, and aeroplanes and helicopters fought it. Successfully too, because just one home was lost and no-one died. My darlings had evacuated to central Daylesford, and that evening the fire came within a few metres of their home. Though wrung out by and wiser for the experience, they’re safe. And I’m relieved. Also their community’s stronger for it all. Richard Flanagan’s moving piece, ‘The Road to Kinglake’ in the March 2009 Monthly magazine, is a delicate tribute to the survivors of the fires. In fire-ravaged Kinglake, he found that amid the devastation residents had retained not only the strength to endure, but a remarkable sense of community: ‘All around us were people frying onions and hamburgers and sorting clothes, people ash-smeared and fire-exhausted, people still to grieve and people unable to be grateful, people reaching out to each other, people looking out for one another and discovering the extraordinary in themselves...Beyond us the police teams were turning over tin, turning up more and more dead, yet everywhere I looked I saw only the living helping the living, people holding people, people giving to people.’ Amen.
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