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Bush Fires, part of gardening in Australia?

© Gay Klok

I am sitting at my computer watching through the window a bush fire. Beautiful South Bruny, the island that was the reason why I built "Big Pond, Cinderella", is on fire. In order to create a vista of a sheet of water stretching towards the Channel and Bruny Island and thus bringing the view closer to our garden, this was the motivation and now the wooded hills are burning black. Yesterday there was smoke, today I can see the flames And the memory of one of the worse days in my life comes rushing back

In 1967, half the island of Tasmania went up in flames, the capital city Hobart itself was threatened by many raging fires. Bush suburb houses were demolished as the fires rushed through the eucalyptus bush surrounds and invaded homes, public buildings, schools and churches. Fanned by a wind of 75-90 mph and temperatures in the forties, Tasmania, about the size of the Netherlands, had fires burning over half its land area The oil, that the Eucalyptus tree expels as a means of defence to protect its bark during a fire, created huge balls of flame that raced through the air and destroyed homes, gardens and peoples' lives.

Kees and I were living in a bush suburb where we had built our home in Tasmania, after returning from living in Canada. The bush block was given to us by my father as part of the fifty acres of virgin bush and garden that surrounded my childhood home. Our family consisted of three children and I was three months pregnant on that Black Tuesday morning, February 7th, 1967. Today's date is February 7th, 2000 and exactly the same weather conditions prevail this year as they did thirty-three years ago. A very dry spring, a late hot and dry summer and autumn, following several years of rain through all seasons causes the bush to grow and shed dry leaves and dead branches. This under storey becomes tinder dry.

I woke on that morning with the temperature already climbing into the thirties degrees Centigrade or 99F. As we were having breakfast, the telephone rang. A girlfriend suggested that I might like to go down to the beach with the children. The two boys were going to school, the first day after the long summer holidays and for Matthew, our youngest son, the very first day at "proper school". Michele, our eldest child, was going to a private school for girls only and was to return to first term activities, the following week. I replied that Michele and I would join her on the local beach at 10 o'clock. I waved goodbye to the boys and Kees took the photograph of Matthew in his first school uniform, and they left to attend classes in the school that was situated four and a half miles further south or ten miles from the Central Business District. Michele and I put on our bathers and departed from the house to go to the local river beach, two streets away and across the main road.

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