Image Credit: Meredith Costain (2019)
Photo is of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and surrounding buildings on the city side and the North Sydney side of the bridge. There is a thick veil of smoke in the air, a greyish orange-is haze.
When I stepped out from my house the other morning, I was shocked by the thick veil of smoke in the air. While we’ve had terrible air quality in Sydney for the past couple of months, we hadn’t had a day this bad in weeks. I looked at my kids. Should they be wearing masks? Should we even be outside? And as I was wondering this, a faded memory of pollution and face masks came back to me.
It was some time in the early 1990s and I was in the first year or two of high school and I’d been asked to participate in the Excellence Expo. Teams of high school students were invited to a nearby university to present projects they had been developing. My group decided to take a look at imagined futures and we put together two videos acting out two different versions of what the future may hold. I don't recall much about the first scenario other than that the family was happy, healthy and that the world seemed fine. The other scenario though, I recall more vividly. The air quality was so bad that the children had to stay indoors, and if anyone went outside they needed to wear a mask to protect themselves from the pollution. And here we are almost 30 years later facing the reality of the dystopian future that my friends and I had imagined all those years ago but not actually believing would ever actually happen.
The bushfire crisis in Australia at present is heartbreaking. New bushfires are popping up every day as alerted by the ping on my phone from the Fires Near Me app. Bushfires are joining together with other bushfires to create mega-blazes. Whole communities are being terrorised by flames of a such an enormous size that I don’t think we can comprehend their impact if we aren't there to see them. Hundreds of houses being lost. A heart-wrenching, rising death toll. Images of children fleeing in boats, or waiting to be rescued. Sacred Aboriginal sites have been destroyed. The loss of native plants and animals on a devastating scale. A staggering amount of animals, birds, reptiles and insects has been estimated to have been killed. Ecologists from the University of Sydney have estimated that one billion animals have lost their lives due to the bushfires across Australia and that figure does not include insect, bat, and frog populations.
While all could feel lost, it somehow isn’t. There is the rising of something very powerful. Everyday people are stepping forward with what they can offer. Help at the firefront fighting the flames, defending homes, helping each other to safety. The kind of help that leaves the helpers blackened with ash and with bodies that as exhausted as a body can be. But around them are more helpers, making sure the firefighters have a decent meal and cool drinks. And those not in directly affected areas are findings ways that they can help, too. Donating goods for Food Banks to fill the gaps in communities where the local supermarket shelves are bare, money is limited, and online transactions not possible. Making donations to firefighting services, wildlife rescue services, and the charities who are there to help people get through the worst.
Authors have held auctions of anything they can offer - signed books, memorabilia, manuscript assessments, advance copies of new titles yet to hit the shelves. Wildlife carers are taking care of the sick and injured animals hurt by the flames, smoke or destruction of their habitat and food and water sources. People are donating unused new or expired first aid supplies for the animals. Nifty crafters are sewing or knitting pouches and other items for injured animals to help in their recovery. Community groups are doing big cook-ups to provide hot, home-cooked meals to nourish and nurture. People are putting together bags of books and stationery for children who have lost their school and all their education supplies. Tegan Weber started the #gowithemptyeskies movement to encourage spending in fire affected areas once the fires have stopped and the communities are ready to welcome visitors. The idea is that you don’t take much with you to maximise the support for the region that you visit - buying food and drinks and filling up with petrol. Turia Pitt and Grace McBridge have also encouraged us to #spendwiththem to support businesses affected by the bushfires to help minimise the loss of income caused by the bushfires with businesses able to keep open already receiving substantial increases in online orders to help keep them afloat. Support is also coming in from overseas, with groups in India sewing wraps for the injured wildlife, and Canadians bringing supplies of bat wraps, hanging pouches and first aid supplies. Australian comedian Celeste Barbour started a fundraiser for the Rural Fire Service in NSW that massively eclipsed her original target of 30,000 dollars, reaching a phenomenal 51 million dollars requiring a decision to be made for the money to be split nationwide across the rural fire services.
We are also turning to the experts to tell them that we are ready to listen. That we should have listened more before, but now we get it. We should have listened more to the former fire chiefs from around the country with decades upon decades of experience and expertise in this area, who noted new trends in bushfires and that we needed a new plan to prevent and manage bushfires. We should have listened to Indigenous elders and experts in land management, who have intricate knowledge of the land including native plant species and how best to perform backburning procedures. We should have welcomed the knowledge of the traditional owners of this land, who kept the land thriving for a seemingly infinite period of time before colonisation, who passed information from one to another from generation to generation, and who can teach us so much about the importance of our connection to the land.
Small acts are joining together in a big wave of support. While there is so much heartache right now, there is also so much love, care, and respect is being expressed. While we are experiencing the worst in Australia right now, there are also thousands of people stepping up to do their best.
Emergency information:
Rural Fire Service Emergency Information
Just a few ways to support the bushfire relief efforts:
Rural Fire Service (RFS) in NSW
Country Fire Authority (CFA) in Victoria
Rural Fire Service (RFS) Queensland
Links to some feelgood stories showing some of the good that is happening:
Amid the ruins of the NSW bushfires, this pharmacist is keeping his doors open
Tourists are welcome in fire-affected areas, when the time is right
GP x