The Australian summer was in full swing when it happened. January 18th, 2003, was very hot and extremely windy. For days the residents of Canberra were watching the smoke in the Namadgi National Park as the fire crept closer to the city. Over 160 fires were set alight in the remote Brindabella ranges, to the west of the ACT, on the 8th January when lighting strikes occurred. Several fires resulted and, as they were remotely situated in inaccessible land, not much attention was paid to them, unfortunately. The region where they began is in New South Wales and under a separate State government authority to the ACT, which is the Australian Capital Territory and home to the National parliament. Some fires spread quickly and were burning in the ACT soon after. Helicopters started water bombing exercises on 13th January, 5 days after they had started. That's the question Canberrans are still trying to get an answer to.
ACT are the initials for the Australian Capital Territory and Canberra is the capitak city of Australia and the home of the Federal gocernment. It was mid summer and halfway through a long dry 10 years of drought in the region. We were on water restrictions, dam levels were low and the grass was tinder dry with lots of fuel accumulated in the bush surrounding the Australian Capital Territory. The last thing we needed was fire. During the morning of January 18th it was hard to miss the smoke from the fires edging ever closer towards Canberra from the west. The wind was building when my sister rang me from Bateman's Bay, some 3 hours drive away. I replied on the verge of tears to hear her voice and the care she had for me. But I was also worried. There were no warnings over the radio and the wind was blowing from the west.
Kambah, were I live, is well in from the outskirts where it would have to pass first. To do so it would have to travel some 10 kilometers or more over other suburbs. Surely I was safe. But how safe were others in its path. Still no warning, in fact there was nothing on the radio about the fires at all except to say they were burning in the Namadgi national Park. The radio was the main source of information for everyone as there was nothing on the television or anywhere else. Hour after hour on that Saturday I watched in horror as the smoke continued to build and the wind got stronger. Around 2.30 to 3 p.m. I got a rather strange phone call from a guy in Western Australia, the other side of the continent. He had rung me in error but informed me that he was trying to reach his brother and family on the other side of Kambah, near the golf links. He asked me how bad the fires were as he heard that houses had been burnt down in Duffy.
My brain was spinning. Where is Duffy I thought? Then news came in, probably over the radio (I can't remember) that over a hundred houses had been burnt down in Duffy. It was around 3pm. Still not able to focus on exactly where Duffy is I went back to doing what I had been doing, listening to the radio. But the emergency was now. A couple of months earlier a diagnosis of pneumonia and post viral myalgia saw me in hospital. The strange thing as the fire worsened was that helicopters were flying overhead taking pictures of the fire approaching the ACT and were beaming those pictures interstate. No one in the ACT could see them and there was a television blackout on the fires. Obviously that was intended to stop panic. But it not only cost a lot of destruction but a lot of probably avoidable death and injuries. So why were we not told? Then I heard that a hundred houses had burnt down in Duffy, probably from the radio. They then issued warnings for Rivett, Kambah, Wanniassa, Woden, and a few other suburbs.
I thought, "what do they mean?" It was a puzzle because no one was telling us what to do or how to avoid the fire or injury or anything else. Those more able than me had, in fact, packed up their cars and were evacuating. I was in something of a daze not knowing what to do. Just after 3 my daughter, Karen, rang and said they were evacuating that embers were falling on their roof and some houses had burnt down in their street. She lives in Rivett, about 8 kilometers from me. She suggested I should evacuate as well. About that time it started getting darker outside. It was like when a thunder storm is approaching. I stood in the Dining room and thought about what should I take if I evacuate. There are all the family treasures, photos, keepsakes, memories, archives, and so on. Then there are my computer files, manuscripts, books, discs, and so on. The list was extensive and with my sore shoulders my capacity was rather limited. About that time the radio went off and it was completely black inside the house.
