accelerate; the fire is coming closer. Still invisible, but the signs are there.
Fitzgerald knows the moment has arrived. He gives the order, and his crew apply their drip torches. A line of fire springs up. An anxious moment—which way will it go?—then Fitzgerald is relieved to see the burn take off and begin to move towards the ridge. The gamble is working.
Sean Hunter, closer to the edge, starts waving frantically, and Fitzgerald sees a sixty-metre burst of flame roar out of the gorge directly in front of them. Almost simultaneously one of the houses behind their line erupts into flame with a suddenness that shocks him. In seconds, there are some thirty spot fires flaring around them.
Their position has suddenly become a death trap: the fire is vaulting right over them. Fitzgerald orders the crew to retreat to a pre-planned anchor point, a safety position. The flames are leaping over their heads. Aaron is aghast to see blue flame run straight up into the crowns.
They sprint for the cars. One crew don’t even have time to roll up the hose; they clamber aboard and race away with a thirty-metre length of hose snaking wildly behind them. A possum, partly burnt and panicking, has the misfortune to pop up onto a rock and is flattened by the swinging hose.
They regroup some two hundred metres back at the corner of National Park and Pine Ridge roads, shelter there for a few minutes and wait for what they take to be the main front to pass. Fitzgerald instructs the crew to do what they can to tackle the spot fires igniting around them, while he and fellow ranger Natalie Brida drive back into the smoke to reconnoitre the area they’ve just evacuated and see if there’s anything in there they can save.
He drives in slowly, carefully, nerves taut. To his relief and surprise, the half-dozen buildings are still standing, albeit under severe ember attack. Has the strategy worked?
The sky turns a sudden, luminous orange.
‘Oh shit!’ This fire is behaving like nothing he’s ever encountered. What he took to be the main front was only the preemptive strike. The worst is about to come. Any second.
They have to get out of there fast. He slams the car into a U-turn, has just managed to complete it when the full fury of the fire’s radiant energy blasts into them. The fire is crowning directly overhead. ‘It was an absolute furnace,’ he commented later.
The world is plunged into darkness. A branch flies out of nowhere and smashes the headlights. He feels the radiant glow burning the side of his face. He can barely see a thing, but he knows this patch of road intimately; his house is just up the road, and he’s walked it nearly every day for the past ten years.
If I don’t get us out of here, he tells himself—and he’s one person who knows what he’s talking about—we’re dead.
He aims at where he hopes the gates are and revs the guts out of the motor. Nothing much happens. The blast of heat has apparently knocked out the electrics. ‘Come on, baby,’ he whispers to the Toyota.
The ute takes off, but slowly, walking pace; they go crawling, grinding and shuddering down the road. The fireside tyres are burnt, and he’s driving on the rims. The tonneau cover catches fire. Fitzgerald is relying on adrenaline and memory, heading for where he figures the gates are.
Aaron, back with the rest of the crew and frantically fighting the fires breaking out around them, hears Natalie on the radio saying their lights are blown out.
Why don’t you just replace the fuse? he thinks, and is stunned to see the boss’s car come crawling out of the darkness, limping and flaming, one side completely black. He’s struck by the look of desperate determination on Fitzgerald’s face. Not even pausing to grab their bags, the occupants leap from the burning vehicle as it is overwhelmed, scramble aboard the slip-ons.
The rendezvous is outside Fitzgerald’s own home. He’s dismayed to see it’s already on fire. He stares at it,
Fitzgerald knows the moment has arrived. He gives the order, and his crew apply their drip torches. A line of fire springs up. An anxious moment—which way will it go?—then Fitzgerald is relieved to see the burn take off and begin to move towards the ridge. The gamble is working.
Sean Hunter, closer to the edge, starts waving frantically, and Fitzgerald sees a sixty-metre burst of flame roar out of the gorge directly in front of them. Almost simultaneously one of the houses behind their line erupts into flame with a suddenness that shocks him. In seconds, there are some thirty spot fires flaring around them.
Their position has suddenly become a death trap: the fire is vaulting right over them. Fitzgerald orders the crew to retreat to a pre-planned anchor point, a safety position. The flames are leaping over their heads. Aaron is aghast to see blue flame run straight up into the crowns.
They sprint for the cars. One crew don’t even have time to roll up the hose; they clamber aboard and race away with a thirty-metre length of hose snaking wildly behind them. A possum, partly burnt and panicking, has the misfortune to pop up onto a rock and is flattened by the swinging hose.
They regroup some two hundred metres back at the corner of National Park and Pine Ridge roads, shelter there for a few minutes and wait for what they take to be the main front to pass. Fitzgerald instructs the crew to do what they can to tackle the spot fires igniting around them, while he and fellow ranger Natalie Brida drive back into the smoke to reconnoitre the area they’ve just evacuated and see if there’s anything in there they can save.
He drives in slowly, carefully, nerves taut. To his relief and surprise, the half-dozen buildings are still standing, albeit under severe ember attack. Has the strategy worked?
The sky turns a sudden, luminous orange.
‘Oh shit!’ This fire is behaving like nothing he’s ever encountered. What he took to be the main front was only the preemptive strike. The worst is about to come. Any second.
They have to get out of there fast. He slams the car into a U-turn, has just managed to complete it when the full fury of the fire’s radiant energy blasts into them. The fire is crowning directly overhead. ‘It was an absolute furnace,’ he commented later.
The world is plunged into darkness. A branch flies out of nowhere and smashes the headlights. He feels the radiant glow burning the side of his face. He can barely see a thing, but he knows this patch of road intimately; his house is just up the road, and he’s walked it nearly every day for the past ten years.
If I don’t get us out of here, he tells himself—and he’s one person who knows what he’s talking about—we’re dead.
He aims at where he hopes the gates are and revs the guts out of the motor. Nothing much happens. The blast of heat has apparently knocked out the electrics. ‘Come on, baby,’ he whispers to the Toyota.
The ute takes off, but slowly, walking pace; they go crawling, grinding and shuddering down the road. The fireside tyres are burnt, and he’s driving on the rims. The tonneau cover catches fire. Fitzgerald is relying on adrenaline and memory, heading for where he figures the gates are.
Aaron, back with the rest of the crew and frantically fighting the fires breaking out around them, hears Natalie on the radio saying their lights are blown out.
Why don’t you just replace the fuse? he thinks, and is stunned to see the boss’s car come crawling out of the darkness, limping and flaming, one side completely black. He’s struck by the look of desperate determination on Fitzgerald’s face. Not even pausing to grab their bags, the occupants leap from the burning vehicle as it is overwhelmed, scramble aboard the slip-ons.
The rendezvous is outside Fitzgerald’s own home. He’s dismayed to see it’s already on fire. He stares at it,
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