The debate over how we are being affected by climate change is no longer just academic. It is becoming personal! Terrible bushfires devastated great swathes of Australia’s southeast last summer. Now it is Western Australia’s turn. Despite the best efforts of our brave firefighters the fire that started in Woorooloo last week is still burning. And we must not forget that wildfires swept parts of the United States in the northern hemisphere summer.
Bushfires are part of our Australian bush legend. They have figured in stories, poems and songs that have become part of the culture of modern Australia. But our native plants show that fire was always a constant in this great land. Many plants including our iconic gum and banksia trees, need the heat of a fire to open seed pods and encourage growth.
In southern Western Australia we have long hot, dry summers and it must have been difficult for our early white settlers, coming from a cool, damp climate. They tended to blame our Indigenous people, the Noongar, for bushfires, but we now know that fires are often the result of natural events such as lightning, and that our first nations people had learned this over the millennia and knew how to use fire safely to ensure the survival of the environment.
Early bushfires were more likely to have been caused by settlers who, ignorant of the climate, thought it was safe to burn off in summer or leave their campfires unattended on a windy day. While I was researching the roles of women in the early days for my Masters thesis ‘Women’s work in the Swan River Colony’, I read of some terrible house, or rather hut, fires that occurred. For the first few years, many of the newcomers were living in tents or huts built of bark or rushes. Even when basic houses were built, all cooking had to be done on an outdoor fire, because of the danger that thatched roofs, dried out by the intense heat of midsummer, could easily catch fire.
In Where Wild Black Swans are Flying, Becky’s mother dies in such a fire. Later, while Becky is living near Peel Inlet with widowed Meg Kenyon and her little sons, she experiences the terror of being trapped in a bushfire. This is how I described that incident a few years ago. Now, seeing the graphic images of our recent bushfires, perhaps I could have used stronger language. What do you think?
Here is the excerpt. (Bessy is the stray cow Becky, Meg and the boys have recently acquired.)
“It was the year we got Bessy, when I was twelve, that the big fire came. For days it had been breathlessly hot. No breeze at all, with everything so dry the grass crackled under your feet. About midday, a faint breeze sprang up and we saw what looked like a great, black storm cloud away to the south. Then the wind blew harder, bringing the scent of burning gum leaves. Soon it was a gale that came whistling and howling through the trees, driving the fire before it, till smoke hid the sun.
A red glow lit the sky, burning ash rained down on us and we heard the voice of the fire itself, roaring like some demon from Hell, as the poor wild creatures came fleeing from that terrible fiery death. The ground crawled with insects and the air was full of screeching and twittering birds. Kangaroos, emus, wallabies and wild dogs; even possums, down from their trees; and little scurrying things like woylies and spotted chuditchs, passed like ghosts through the choking smoke.
I saw it all from the roof, where I was tossing water on the thatch while Meg frantically pulled more from the well for Bobby to pour on the plants. But we only had two buckets, so it was hopeless.
Billy worried about his ducks but they took to the water themselves, and we’d tied Bessie to a tree by the water. Now all we could do was take everything we could carry and put it in the boat.
“Let Bessy loose, Becky!” Meg shouted, “Maybe she’ll go in the water.”
After I’d done that, I knelt in the shallows, trying to pray, and not think of poor Ma, dying in the flames. But Meg was yelling above the roaring, searing wind, “Come away, Becky! We can pray out on the water.”
And so we did. All of us clinging together, asking God to save us. Maybe he heard, because the wind suddenly swung around to the west, sending the fire whooshing away up the river.
“God grant the settlers up there are safe,” Meg whispered, but I was thinking of Tinjiri’s people and praying they’d escaped the flames too. Hardly daring to believe that our little home was safe, we watched the fire fade away in a gloom of grey smoke, leaving only scorched, blackened earth and smoldering trees.
“Thank God for that strong westerly,” Meg said. “I don’t think the fire will come back this way. There’s nothing left to burn, but we’ll wait a bit to make sure it’s safe, and say another prayer to thank the good Lord for saving us.”
“And the ducks, too, Ma!” said Billy.
“Of course, and Bessy.”
We said our prayers, then rowed back to the beach and went to see how the cottage and garden had fared. Bessy was still standing, mooing, at the water’s edge.
It was a miracle the cottage survived. The thatch at the back was still smoldering. The water we’d poured on had saved it, but if the wind hadn’t turned, the house would’ve gone in the twinkling of an eye. We all cried when we saw the garden. Our poor scorched fruit trees looked half dead, and one end of the garden was burnt black. Some of our new fence lay charred and smoking on the ground.”
So, is climate change making our bushfires worse?
Ask the people who have lived through them. Not just Australians, living in the driest continent on Earth. Ask the people of California, Oregon and Washington State in the US. The people of Spain and of sub Saharan Africa. And it’s not just fire. Climate change is changing the behaviour of devastating events such as Tropical Cyclones (Hurricanes) and Tornadoes.
Yes, something is making bushfires more frequent, more severe. If it’s not climate change, what is it?
Lynne Cairns 