Without Warning Read online

  Sean and Carissa arrive back. Carissa shows me the photos she’s taken: ‘There’s smoke everywhere, and cars. It’s horrible,’ she says.

  ‘We ran into a huge wall of smoke at the first bend on the powerline road,’ Sean says. He tells us how cars were pouring up the hill from Strathewen, and others trying to get down. ‘The southern side of the mountain is in flames. We turned around and headed out of there and I kept telling other people to turn back, that they weren’t going to get down.’ They rang Tania and told her to head back to Eltham, and then raced back here. Sean turns to Brad and Mike. ‘We’re in seven sorts of shit, boys. Get ready.’ He’s on the move, wetting things down outside again. Carissa sticks with him, taking photos one after the other. I get Sarah going with a list of fire-plan chores.

  My mobile phone rings. It’s Tania, she’s been waved off the road in Arthurs Creek and is sheltering with a couple in a farmhouse. I freeze momentarily as she describes how a wall of flame is scorching up the mountain. She’s telling the man in the farmhouse that her family are up there in Deviation Road. ‘He says we’re looking towards Deviation Road and that’s where it’s heading. There are fire trucks tearing along the road down here and the smoke is really thick. I’ll stay here. The guy is in the CFA and he seems to know what’s going on,’ she says. I hear the terror in her voice. ‘Okay,’ I reply. ‘You stay put with them and don’t go on the road for any reason. We’re cranking up the action. There’s no getting out of here now.’ And so I have to leave my daughter with strangers, watching a holocaust barrelling towards her family, while I go about getting organised.

  I relay to Brad, Mike and Sarah what appears to be happening, which we’re still thinking might be an ordinary fire front. ‘If it behaves like a normal front, it will roar through quickly and keep moving on. We’ll hunker down in the house, or if necessary go across to John and Julie’s because that’s probably the safest place to be if we can’t control it here. Once the front has passed through, then the really hard work begins. We’ll be on patrol and putting out spot fires for quite a while,’ I tell them. Brad and Mike say they’re up for it and look for practical things to do: they’re reassuringly strong and capable, and have trained as volunteer firefighters in New Zealand.

  Sarah seems nervous and frightened, but keeps her head and calmly asks for instructions. ‘I’ll do whatever you tell me,’ she says. I silently thank God for this sensible, non-panicking person. I tell her to fill the bath, though the water pressure will be low because the power is off and the pumps aren’t working, and to take all the large towels out of the linen cupboard and throw them in to soak. I’ve laid out sets of clothes on the back of the couch in the family room and tell her to put on long pants, a shirt and any boots that fit; the others need to do the same. I ask her to then fill bottles with drinking water, and start packing the wet towels along the bottoms of the doorways in the sitting-room and hallway. She follows all this to the letter, except for the clothes, but I figure she’ll get around to that.

  Sean has already put on a padded cotton shirt, long pants, and Blundstone boots. I pull on work boots, jeans and the thick Tibetan wool jacket that is my winter security blanket. It’s 46°C and I’m dressed for the Himalayas. For some reason, it occurs to me that I haven’t put any knickers on. Too bad.

  I fill the laundry tub and all our buckets with water and then go outside to pull things away from the house: the outdoor furniture, doormats, a broom, the barbecue. Then I start packing the wet towels along more doorways, slopping water everywhere. We’re calm and I’m cracking jokes. Sarah is a bit startled by my fire-alert humour, but it’s important to have a laugh if you can. The worst thing you can do in the face of a fire front is panic—it undermines the control and mental strength you are going to need, which can’t be overestimated. Fear can paralyse you.

  I look out the back window. The smoke has turned into a mushroom cloud and has an abnormal motion about it. I ring Julie and tell her we’re battening down the hatches, we’re on full alert and will fall back to them if we have to. We will pick the safest option to get the others through any approaching fire front, and once the worst of it has gone through and we can get outside again we can rationally attack the spot-fires and ember strikes. I feel quite clinical and logically think things through. I feel guilty about imposing extra stress on John and Julie, but we all decided long ago that their property was the most defendable. ‘That place wouldn’t move in a hurricane, earthquake or tsunami,’ Sean has often said.

  With plans in place, we feel quite in control. We are starting to guess at things now. It seems likely that the fire will be coming from the south, which means Number 59 would be hit first. But the wind appears to still be hurtling in from the north: maybe the change in direction has started somewhere else and hasn’t quite reached us yet. I know we are on our own. There won’t be any emergency services available for the first onslaught; there have been no sirens, no trucks.

  The men have gone outside. The pall of smoke is getting bigger and darker: I can see it through the large windows at the back of the house, still seeming distant but starting to block out the sun. The wind is swirling in crazy patterns, objects are blowing around, branches are bending and swaying. The back door is almost wrenched off its hinges every time someone opens it. Crisp leaves and dry twigs are bucketing down, pelting the roof and windows like a hailstorm, filling up the backyard. The lawns are littered.

  Even though the air-conditioning has been off for some time, I’m not feeling the heat—too mentally preoccupied. There’s still enough gravity feed from the bore’s header tank to keep filling the bath. I leave Sarah with her tasks: she must think I sound like an army sergeant, giving orders, matter-of-fact. I always turn into a practical being in times of crisis, and Sean is the same. We trust each other implicitly in that sort of situation.

  I grab the car keys off the bench and go to the car to listen to the radio coverage. There’s a desperate need to get some sort of handle on where things are. It is stifling out here, hard to breathe even with the car door open and the air-conditioning cranked up. There’s no mention of Kinglake, just more about Kilmore and Wandong and Murrindindi. I find it a bit of a confusing jumble of information. It’s just after four o’clock: I constantly watch the smoke plume, but still can’t pinpoint its exact location. It’s off to the right, down near the powerline road, and I’m assuming it is heading elsewhere since the wind appears to still be coming from the north. The weather vane on the chimney is doing a crazy rotation in the gale-force wind, swinging one way and then the next, freewheeling. The wind, howling relentlessly, hasn’t slowed and it’s impossible to read its direction clearly. I’m hanging out for the predicted wind change.

  The smell of smoke is strong now, with a eucalyptus-oil tang to it. The sun is rapidly disappearing. I’m starting to hear a rumble—my hearing has become acute—but it still seems distant. All my senses are on full alert, and the decision to choose fight over flight comes automatically. I don’t decide consciously: there is simply no flight response, no desire to leave now. We go with it from here—no thoughts of getting into cars and trying to drive away. I’ve had it drilled into me that a car is the worst place to be in a firestorm.

  Now there is the beginning of a roar, distant and low, like a growling noise with a building baritone edge to it. I look at the weather vane again and it is spot-on south-west. I feel goose-bumps despite the sweat that’s running down inside my woollen jacket and soaking my heavy socks. My hair is sticking to my face and neck. I’ve lost track of where Sean and Carissa are, though I know she’ll be staying close to him. But I want her to be at what we believe is the safest location in our road and I’m also fretting about Tania in Arthurs Creek, though at least she’s in a house with somebody with fire experience. Brad and Mike have climbed onto the roof of the house and are frantically sweeping leaves and twigs off it, though the leaves are falling faster than they can clear them. I feel stressed about the pair being up there in the heat and sq
ualling wind, and abandon the car radio to yell at them to come back down. But they’ve already made that decision—they’ve seen a giant ember fall into the paddock at the back of the house and they’re shouting and pointing at it. We rush to extinguish it, but there’s more coming. I steel myself for the coming battle: there’s no doubt whatsoever that we’re in for one.

  Suddenly, a deafening roar makes me snap my head up in fright. It’s an awful noise, like jet aircraft coming in low at full throttle. In less than a second, a strip of the back, main-road boundary has burst into flame, which now starts to spread sideways at an alarming rate. Where the hell did that come from? This is not just the crackle of a fire as it catches dry grass and twigs: angry red shafts are shooting 20 to 30 metres into the air. Flames are curling and swirling, bending to the ground and then flicking up even higher, curving over and flinging balls of fire ahead and into the distance. They rocket over the property like missiles and are dropping like bombs. God almighty, it’s going over the top of us, I think. It’s a terrifying dance.

  But then it starts to skim across the grass in the paddock. This is not normal—the word ‘hellfire’ comes to mind. I run like crazy into the house, making a beeline for the bath. I count out the number of wet tea-towels needed for everyone’s faces and dunk them in the water. Flames are still running down the paddock, skimming across the surface at incredible speed. I think that at least the fire will move on quickly at this rate; it seems to be going too fast to stick. I make the decision to get the others across the road. Sean brings Carissa inside while he chases the spot-fires, and I turn her towards me and hand her a wet tea-towel to tie across her mouth and nose. She is quiet and attentive. I look her dead in the eye, with my hands on her shoulders: ‘Take Jazz and go to John and Julie’s now. Take Brad, Sarah and Mike with you. Don’t stop and don’t look back. Just keep going until you reach them. Don’t lose the wet tea-towel off your face.’

  Sean is yelling at them, ‘Go, go, go!’ I ring Julie to say they’re on their way. She says she’ll be waiting at the door; John is outside with the generator going full bore to power the pump for the hoses. It is getting dark; the roar has subsided to a rumble, but the wind is still screaming. Sean prepares to follow the others across the road, taking Harley with him. ‘I’m right behind you,’ I call. But for a split second I hesitate in the family room. Where’s Meg? God, I’ve forgotten Meg. She’s disappeared. I yell her name: no response. I can’t leave her here—she can’t run like the others, with her old, arthritic legs. What the hell, I’ll find her and carry her if I have to. I know this is not what you are supposed to do: you are supposed to save yourself and leave the dog. But I just can’t.

  The room is filling with smoke. In spite of the wet towels along the doorways, it’s billowing in, thick and cloying. A smoke alarm goes off, a piercing, brain-numbing siren. The smoke is making me cough. Where’s that bloody dog? Everything outside is catching fire now: I can see the big gum tree out the back flaring and flaming. Shit, I can’t go out the back door now. Pitch-darkness rolls down like a blind, in what seems like seconds. For one horrible moment I fear Meg may have taken off outside—she’d follow Sean anywhere. But there’s no leaving now; I have to stay with the house. The smoke is already noxious and I’m struggling with it despite the wet cloth pressed to my face. I can see, courtesy of the ghastly flickering glow from flaming trees and bushes, that the garden beds are one giant and deadly blaze. The screaming roar is coming back, combining with the smoke alarm in a maddening clamour. My lungs are feeling scorched now and my only thought is escaping the smoke that’s getting denser and more bitter to breathe by the second. Mustn’t panic; must keep my breathing shallow.

  I yell again for Meg, but the very action chokes me. In a lastditch effort I check the spare room at the back of the house. She’s there! Lying low under the piano, not moving, just making the throaty noise she favours when she wants attention. The intelligent eyes are looking at me, her chin resting on outstretched front paws. I try to get her up but she doesn’t want to move. She licks my hand and face, though she’s not normally a licker. I coax her, but she won’t budge, preferring to stay as flat as she can on the floor. I smile to myself and decide she’s the smart one: all those ‘Crawl low under smoke’ messages come into my head. The clever old dog! She’s slowed her breathing right down; the wild-dog instinct has kicked in. I lie down on the floor, my arms around her, and she cuddles in and licks my chin. I love this dog.

  It’s easier to breathe at floor level. I make her start to crawl with me. ‘Let’s get up the hallway to the bedroom or the study.’ I keep talking to her. The bent, arthritic legs aren’t liking the crawling motion and she stops to protest. I coax; she licks my hand. The screaming smoke alarm is seriously rattling her—and me, for that matter. She looks up at it with her ears back; I know how she feels—the noise is driving me crazy.

  My eyes sting and stream water, my lungs are seriously hurting. Stay low, crawl under the smoke. Above all, don’t panic. I have no concept of time—this could be taking seconds, or minutes. I’m not sure what stage the fire has reached. Has the front gone through? That terrible roar would suggest it is right on top of us. Is the main ember blast still to come? It’s pitch-black now. I know the drill: hunker down and wait until the light comes up again and the fire front has fully passed. Then wait a while longer until it appears safe to get out onto burnt ground. Beyond that I have no strategy; I have to deal with this moment by moment. I feel strangely and utterly calm, quite lightheaded in fact, as if I’ve taken a tranquilliser. I pass the pantry, hauling my hunkered-down dog by the collar, then stand up, feel for a torch and find one, and grab the car keys off the bench. It’s not the keys I want, but the tiny LED torch attached to the ring.

  More smoke alarms have gone off. The noise is unbearable: the jet-engine roar; huge bursts of exploding yellow light, like bombs going off; screeching alarms; the thump of heavy debris landing on the roof and glancing off windows; things crashing into the side walls. There is a graunching sound of roofing iron moving, as nails and bolts strain, lift and slap down again. Something skids crazily around the backyard and slams against the brick wall.

  I head past the spare bedroom and somehow think to grab a woollen blanket. I leave Meg in the hallway, backtrack to the bath and soak the blanket: it seems vitally important to do this. There is enough flickering light from the fire to provide murky visibility. Meg has followed me back and is making a beeline for the piano, agitated and trying to shut her ears. I coax her back and drag her, along with the wet blanket, back to the kitchen. Every breath is agony; the sopping wool weighs a tonne. I can’t help thinking that I’m never going to get the water stains out of the carpet, but I’ll worry about that later. I seriously want to break the smoke alarms: the continual, piercing screams are making me feel physically sick. I look around for something that will reach one, but no luck. I pull a bottle of water out of the fridge on the way past—suddenly I’m staggeringly thirsty and I need to keep up the fluids.

  We get down on the floor in the hallway. To hell with the carpet: I pour water into my hand and Meg slurps it. She’s panting heavily. I manage to haul her along, though she’s flopped to a dead weight, and the leaden blanket and water bottle are somehow making the journey as well. The smoke alarm outside the main bedroom is totally out of sync with the others, which makes for an even more maddening cacophony. What can I smash it with? It’s sheer torment.

  We reach the study, but Meg runs back out the door. I can’t follow her: all the effort is playing havoc with my ability to breathe and I will myself not to gulp the air in. We are heading into sheer survival mode: I realise I have to leave poor Meg to her own devices, as trying to keep track of her is mentally and physically paralysing. I’ve done my best for her to this point. The decision makes me feel incredibly sad: the things that dog has survived and now she’s in danger of suffocating to death. Then again, she may be fine. I can’t dwell on it.

  I fall onto my knees in front
of the bay-window seat and rest my chin on it. It seems like a huge achievement to have got here; I need to put my head down and think. I’m still dead-calm, but my heart rate is up, the pulse points thumping, though not from any conscious sense of fear. I have no sense of the temperature either; I’m numb. My mobile phone rings and I drag it from my pocket. It’s Sean. ‘Is the house all right?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes, I’m in the study but it’s really hard to breathe,’ I reply.

  ‘Just sit tight,’ he says. ‘The house is the best place to be.’

  I feel lumpy in the throat. And where’s Meg? I’m afraid she’s going to die. Abruptly, I’m brought back to the present with a crash: the ghastly roar has picked up momentum. The bay window offers a shocking view, which hits my brain in slow motion, almost as if this is happening outside of me, like it’s somebody else’s nightmare. There is an insane hurricane of fire outside; the big trees all through the front of the property are ablaze. I can actually see huge, swirling tongues of burning wind: the air is literally on fire, ripping through everything in its path, searing, swirling, eddying back on itself. It is flinging branches and debris like missiles and the din is increasing. Clouds of red-hot embers are caught in a whirlpool that’s glowing ruby and yellow, intensifying as the wind provides a new gasp of oxygen. I crane my neck and look out the bay window to the right. At least the shed hasn’t gone up yet. There’s paint and petrol in there and God knows what else. It’s too close to the house—if the shed goes, the house will too.