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The van is packed quickly. Passports, insurance papers, photos, precious items, Jack the ancient golden retriever, all bundled in together. The sky is cobalt blue and cloudless, the temperature rising menacingly. Long dried out, the grass crackles underfoot.
To the south, an angry pillar of smoke rises like a giant fist. It's headed our way.
Time is of the essence. We are evacuating.
We'd toughed it out a few days earlier, terrified as day turned to night, waiting for the wall of flame to arrive, unsure whether our house would survive. We aren't prepared to go through that again. We set off for the safety of Sydney, resigned to the very real possibility our world won't be here when we return.
Sunglasses hide my tears as we head up the highway, dread and relief fighting it out in the pit of my stomach.
Three years later and the memory of that day comes back as the mercury soars. Summer has finally arrived just before autumn, late thanks to La Nina. The weather pattern which doused the Black Summer fire and drenched us with rain for three years is in retreat.
The ceiling fans are spinning, the windows are open and the blinds on the sunny side of the house are lowered. A different dog (Jack passed away a year after the fire) lies on the cool tiles as I sit at the desk by the open window, savouring the occasional lick of breeze and reflecting on our good fortune that this - our world - is still here. Too many people weren't so lucky.
We're both feeling the heat. But we'd better get used to it because, according to meteorologists, La Nina's angry brother El Nino is waiting just around the corner to mug us. And when it does it won't be the damp cold we'll whinge about. It'll be dry, earth-cracking heat.
Sky News meteorologist Rob Sharpe reckons El Nino has a 65 per cent chance of occurring next year. If it does, it won't be floods upending lives. It will be fire.
Where I live on the coast, that's a serious concern because three short years after the fires roared through, the bush is thick with new growth, ready to dry out and become the next explosive fuel load. Black wattle, pittosporum and other species have invaded. Yet, very little appears to have been done to manage it.
Hazard reduction burns have been problematic because the country has been so damp. The onset of neutral conditions as La Nina ends and before El Nino returns is likely to be shorter, thanks to climate change, closing the window of opportunity for hazard reduction.
And there are fewer people to do it. Firefighting volunteer numbers are dwindling. In the decade from 2009 to 2019, they fell by 10 per cent across the country, according to the Productivity Commission. There was a short-lived spike in volunteering after the Black Summer fires but that was quickly eroded by COVID and the risk and restrictions that accompanied it.
Over summer, the billboards have gone up imploring people to update their fire plans. It's a fair bet they've been given little heed. When the country's flooding, fire is the last thing on your mind.
But the change in the weather pattern - and the heatwave in south-eastern Australia - ought to jolt us from that complacency.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Are we ready for the next El Nino? Has enough been done where you live to reduce the risk of bushfire? Do you sometimes feel we're on a disaster treadmill? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- A $307 million system to fix the logjam of nearly 45,000 security vetting clearances has been described as a failure months after its launch. MyClearance, a digital one-stop shop for government officials and external contractors seeking security clearances, launched in November last year has been plagued by technical issues with at least one national security agency having to revert to manual "workarounds".
- Australia's top doctor has confirmed federal health officials are developing an official national strategy for how to deal with cases of long COVID. Speaking before a parliamentary inquiry on the impacts of long COVID, chief medical officer Paul Kelly said the health department had been tasked by Health Minister Mark Butler in developing the strategy.
- Financial crime investigators have raided 10 people suspected of promoting GST fraud across three states. Operation Protego, a major operation begun last year by the tax office-led serious financial crimes task force, is focused on offenders inventing fake businesses and lodging false Australian business number applications.
THEY SAID IT: "I don't hold a hose, mate." - Scott Morrison
YOU SAID IT: Garry told the moving story of his mother-in-law Delfina, uprooted from Italy in 1968 and now a global social media sensation. It was a thoughtful reflection on the contribution migrants make to our country.
Elizabeth says: "In the 1950s my father worked with a lot of Italians and Greeks. He came home with tales of the exotic things they had for lunch. Like most Australians then we were very much white bread and Kraft cheese. Thank goodness all those exotic things they introduced are absolutely mainstream now. The first Greek wedding we were invited to stunned my parents because the entire family, even five-year-old me, was invited. It was enormous with kids everywhere."
Trevor shares his family's story: "My mother arrived in Sydney with her parents and two younger brothers in 1912 from The Netherlands. Her father told the family that from now on they don't speak Dutch, only English. Grandpa became a builder, and lived to his late seventies. Grandma died in her early seventies before him, and the spark left his life. He was slowly dying in a hospice and I used to cycle out to see him every weekend. 'Why are you dying, Grandpa?' I asked him once. 'I'm going to join mummy as soon as I can,' he replied. In my 13-year-old mind, that was explanation enough."
John says: "What a beautifully written piece. We have welcomed people from all over the world and it has made Australia a much better place. My childhood was much different to that of today's children in a myriad of ways, mostly positive. Please keep up your thought-provoking words."
Old Donald remembers the immigrants who lived nearby: "This essay should be bottled and preserved. I grew up next to the Greenlands Estate in Lake Macquarie, full of 'migrants'. We had a variety and some of their names were nigh-impossible to pronounce. Veeshak's younger brother's moniker beat us completely, so we called him Wally. It stuck. We had Ardvik Kersa and Vitoosh Neesengeebish, and my best mate was Gunther Kress who went on to be professor of English Language at the University of London after taking the Newcastle University medal (and before that working as a furrier). They knew things, ate things (yum!), and had (sometimes unpleasant) territorial Alsatian dogs. Buggers bit your heels as you rode past. The kids all grew up to make the country what it has become."
Brenda recalls the prejudice: "Walking home from school, 10 years old with a child I didn't know well, we passed modest government houses in our working-class suburb. Every square metre of ground flourished with green: tomatoes, runner beans, peas, cabbages. My classmate said 'I hate Italians. They grow vegetables in the front yard'. I was dumbstruck. So inane. What possible harm was it doing to anybody? I went on, of course, like millions more to fall in love with Italy, with Italians, their superb language, food, joie de vivre. Our waves of migrants have enriched this country beyond belief. And from time to time I wonder if that classmate ever grew to feel the same."
Scott says: "Thank you for that beautiful story. We are a work in progress. When I was a kid, back in the 1960s and '70s, Aussie culture was a strange fantasy based on bush ballads; we ate meat and three overcooked veggies. Nonna and all the other 'new Australians' have contributed and continue to contribute to one of the world's most exciting new cultures. And now, finally, we are beginning to embrace First Nations cultures, too. Of course we have to be careful about how many people we allow into Australia; too many too fast will cause problems and pain. But surely, even fans of Pauline H can see how wonderful our multiculturalism can be. We just need to do it carefully, and with humanity."