The Black Summer Fires – My story
by Wendy Pollard
The Currowan fire was looming and the air was thick with smoke. Our Family Xmas at Mogo was cancelled due to fires and road closures and all our time was spent on removing any possible fire dangers from around our house and property.
Requiem, a sculpture by Stephen Harrison at our Mogo property, has become a reference point for before and after the fire on December 31st 2019.
I took a pic on Xmas Day 2019 of our little friend waiting to cross in the usual spot from the bush to the creek.
Since my grandson Ryu lives with us we had worked with him to ensure we had a fire plan for our family and this was to get the house fire ready, prepack important documentation, gather our animals, check in on a neighbour
and evacuate.
The day before the fire I was drawn to Requiem once again with a beam-me-up moment from the fire sun. This day was eerily silent as black gum leaves were gently floating from the sky to the ground.
That evening we received a text that we would be able to leave the next day.
6am the next morning booming from our answering machine was a siren and evacuation alert to leave immediately and head to the beach. We put our fire plan in place and while gathering our animals into our cars, live embers were falling from the sky.
We picked up Ryu, who was having a sleepover with his other Grandparents from Rosedale and headed to family in Canberra via Kangaroo Valley with roads closing behind us along the way. We later found out Rosedale was hit hard too, and homes lost.
On arriving at my daughters house she said she didn’t want to scare us but showed us a video of Mogo. It looked as though everything was on fire and we thought we had lost everything.The next day we were informed that we had lost everything except the house Phew!
My partner David returned at the first possible opportunity after roads reopened, days after the fire and travelled via Brown mountain to Mogo.
On his return he took a picture of the ashes of where Requiem had stood.
David noticed a kangaroo that could have been injured still visiting this area, and left out water and sweet potato which it consumed. A flood happened not long after and unfortunately the kangaroo died.
We had volunteers from the French Fire Brigade helping with the clean-up of the property and they helped bury our little friend just behind where Requiem had once stood.
Luckily the mud brick house and vegie patch survived. It’s like the fire just jumped right over the top. Our thanks go to our neighbour Darrin who saw a fire flare up around our verandah post days after and stomped it out.
We lost our outside buildings and possessions stored within. I had all my photo albums and some things from my grandparents in storage so there is a hole inside me when I think of them. My brother’s 1952 Bedford bus tiny home burnt. David lost his artworks/ sculptures and the studio workshop. My Grandson’s bike scooter etc. Material things can be replaced but not the sentimental.
Fires were still flaring up randomly around the bush when the wind came up.
Where the garage burnt down, on our storage side, small pottery items were the only things left where boxes of photos, heirlooms and other lifetime collections were stacked.
On our vehicle side were the charred skeletons of the Fergie tractor, Citroen ute and Harley Davidson.
I returned with Ryu once we had an insurance rental in Broulee where we stayed for around 5 months while there were volunteer and official cleanups, dangerous trees removed, and tanks and electricity poles re-installed at Mogo. Covid was around and homeschooling was a new curveball at this time.
I really missed the animals. A wobbly Cockatoo survivor turned up with blackened feathers and a missing crest at the bird bath. A sad reminder of the terror of fleeing wildlife.
Art has secret healing powers and I started pyrography. A new pottery workshop at Bingie was so helpful to my wellbeing and a great distraction as my world and landscape had changed so drastically.
Art has secret healing powers and I started pyrography. A new pottery workshop at Bingie was so helpful to my wellbeing and a great distraction as my world and landscape had changed so drastically.
The property used to be hidden away and trees buffered the traffic noise, so I’m still not used to seeing the highway. I see truckloads of logs come out of the fire-ravaged forest across the road. Total disregard for the recommendations of the Environment Protection Policy report, and for community voices, animals, and their future habitat.
It was heartbreaking knowing the generation of animals that had homes in various hollows, billabong and creek were wiped out.
There has been a devastating loss of wildlife and I miss the daily crossing of the swamp wallabies from the bush to creek. Kangaroos in the paddock. The goanna having a drink in our courtyard. Turtles basking on a log in the creek, our little Kingfisher, the White Necked Heron and the Black Cockies’ tree hollow. An abundance of flora and fauna just missing!
Over the last two years outside buildings have been slowly rebuilt, luckily on high ground. The worst flood we’ve ever had, happened in December 2021. The water level was so high our shops in Mogo village were flooded. It knocked out our rebuilt boundary fences, our replanting and mulching and the creek regeneration. Some of our tree ferns in the front paddock were swept away in the flood as well. Another setback for many of us who felt like we were just recovering.
It’s great to see birdlife thriving again. The little birds, silver eyes and red masked finches are dancing around my birdbath and grevilleas this week and for me that’s all I need right now to feel happy.
Thankyou to all the volunteers who helped us. We feel lucky and our heart goes out to all who lost their home, animals or loved ones.
Mogo Regenerating early 2020
