fire

That first winter the house sat triumphant atop the hill amidst the swirl of rain and hail. The clutch of old gums bent with the wind, showering the house with leaves, nuts and bark, while the newly planted old English oaks and conifers struggled with the harsh realities of life. The old worksheds across the ridge continued their stop-motion collapse into each other. As the drying spring gave way to summer the grass was cut and baled, the hayshed filled to overflowing, and the last of the potatoes harvested and the first cycles of cauliflowers planted. Before long the earth dried and crackled under foot, the grass paled to yellow and the devils started their dance across the paddocks. The east wind howled down the gullies, singeing the tips and wiping the remaining moisture from the eyes.

And then it came. It started as an unnerving calm, the kind where you tilt your head as if listening for the far off answer to an unwanted question. The air hang heavy and dead; a corpse waiting to be cut loose. Then slowly it came- a long guttural moan conjured by the devil from the depths of hell. A wet-hot gale across a dry-baked land.

What started from the east swung down from the north, carrying its white-hot fire. Its storms set fire to the parched forests and paddocks, and its vicious winds fanned the flames forth across the world. Man, woman and child pitched in to save what they could and stem the fiery tide in the face of the cyclone. Paddock gates were flung open so that animals could flee into the forest or into the dam. Litter was hastily removed from gutters. Hoses and sprinklers were turned onto the walls and roofs of houses.

Tendrils of fire licked through the canopies fringing the farms, and caught the stubbled stems of the fields alight. The unrelenting wind whipped across the land, spreading fire wherever it went. Cinders and ash set to flight by the wind fell all around setting off spot-fires ahead of the red front, only to be engulfed by the body of the fire.

Irrigation pipes and sprinklers were quickly diverted from their crops to houses, yards and sheds. Pumps hungrily gobbled water from the lake and spewed it upon roofs, walls, windows and sheds. Crops were surrendered to the fire, although parts were spared by the moisture retained from the previous evenings watering. Haystacks became fireballs; oxy-acetylene tanks and 44-gallon drums of diesel went up like bombed munitions dumps. Burning shrapnel fell all around. Families hid in bathrooms, fearful of looking out the windows at the approaching wave. It roared in their ears as it swept over and around.

And then it was over. As fast as it had come, it was gone. The red-orange front disappeared into the forest, leaving behind a carpet of black dotted with orange coals humming and spitting like bees released from their stings. The wind continued to shriek, lifting ash from the ground and hurling them forward to stain. The people pulled on their boots, picked up their buckets and shovels and set to inspecting the damage and dousing the smouldering coals with water. The ground spluttered and hissed against the water. Blackened figures wandered the slopes into the night, visible through the glow of the scorched earth. They returned exhausted and hungry, stained black by ash in flight. Lines streaked their faces where their sweat had run.

As they sat down to eat, the wind by measures diminished and fat dollops of rain began to fall. Thunder rolled down the valley again, this time accompanied by a veil of water. It fell with a continuous intensity dousing the remaining coals and sending clouds of steam spiralling upwards. Ash that had escaped the winds grasp was washed downhill by the torrent into the lake, staining its fringes black.

So what of me in this maelstrom of wind and fire? The fire had swept across the stubbled slope of the hill on which I stand. Thankfully for me there was not too much fuel littering the ground, so I was left with only shallow scorch marks on the base of my trunk and spot burns on my flesh from pieces of coal flung by the hot wind. I had friends who were not so lucky; who were consumed, their blood boiled by the inferno.

However after the fire had raced past and the wind flipped its direction and intensified with the passing of the eye my arm was twisted and snapped near the shoulder. It fell amidst the ash and embers sending a shower of sparks into the darkness. The wound burnt worse than the fire. My blood beaded on the shards and splinters, to be washed away and cleaned by the lashing rain. That night I cried. My remaining limbs rubbed against each other giving voice to my pain.

By morning the world was still again. The smells of woodsmoke and phosphorus hung in the air, yielding a brilliant purple and yellow morning. Dogs trotted across the black earth lead by their snouts and chickens scratched at the roasted corpses of insects and worms as the people in their houses slept solidly against the night before. In time they emerged and converged down by the water’s edge to check that everyone was OK and to count their losses and recount their tales.

With no small luck everybody had survived, and the houses of the Monroe’s, Albert and Sarah, and Phillip and Beth remained in place. Some sheds had been destroyed, their black smouldering carcasses cracked wide open to the elements. As they walked together they encountered the burnt bodies of stock and sifted through the remains of the summer crops. The paddocks and patches of bush on either side of the lake were charred black. Scarcely a blade or leaf of green remained. Grey fingers reached up from the earth at random intervals, and as they walked they spread and buried the coals and doused the ground with jets of water from the water packs strapped to their backs. A mist started up that nobody seemed to notice.

As the procession neared the weir my brother looked up the slope of his origin to see the burnt out mess of his parents home. Smoke still curled upwards from the pile of pale coals and twisted, reddened corrugated iron. His heavy eyes drifted across the hillside to rest upon my distorted and ghostly form. He dropped his head and cried through closed eyes. His wife put her arm around his shoulder as he sobbed. She clutched him to her breast and cradled him until he was stilled.