Smoke blows across backed-up traffic off the M1 as fire crews battle high winds to put out a blaze in Brownsville on 28 August. Photo: Zoe Cartwright.
It’s a windy, unseasonably warm day; I can smell smoke on the wind.
It smells clean. That’s a good sign – it means the fire hasn’t reached anything man-made, despite being in the middle of suburbia.
The smell of homes and cars burning is unforgettable.
NSW Fire and Rescue says it’s under control, but I’m a journalist. It’s my job to fact-check, so I wander down.
The closer I get the heavier the smoke, and the traffic. Police have closed the M1, and the fire has jumped a section of road to the next median strip.
There are just three fire trucks on scene. I see the silhouettes of two firefighters through the smoke, struggling against the wind.
It doesn’t look under control to me.
I check the Fires Near Me page, and the hazards app. They haven’t been updated in two hours.
I call Fire and Rescue NSW, who repeat that the fire is under control. They weren’t aware it had crossed the first section of road.
The duty officer is on his way to a different grass fire, in Western Sydney. Everyone is stretched.
It feels like 2019.
There’s the same tension in the air. Drivers stuck in traffic are furious; the people you talk to make jokes-that-aren’t-really-jokes about evacuating.
Despite the Bushfire Inquiry, despite the Natural Disaster Royal Commission, on the ground not much has changed.
The community can’t access up-to-date information, emergency services are under-resourced and overburdened, and for some reason there’s still a wait-and-see attitude to fires that break out in high fire danger rating conditions.
I pop my passport, wallet, inhaler and keys into a bag and collect my laptop gear. All the dogs have their harnesses on, ready to go. The smaller creatures have been packed into carry-sized crates and tanks.
I know how quickly things can go from “under control” to “shelter in place”. I know how hard it is to leave when highways are cut, and everyone has decided to evacuate at the last possible moment. The streets turn into carparks.
When one of my colleagues found a body in a burnt-out car during the Black Summer bushfires, I was the first person he called.
It still haunts me. It’s hard to imagine a worse way to go.
I duck over to check on my neighbour over the road. She’s elderly, and lives with her son who has a disability.
They’re out on the front verandah, watching the smoke billow towards us, unsure of how far away it is or what they should do.
I ask about their fire plan, joking-but-not. They haven’t really got one.
NSW Fire and Rescue deploys another four fire trucks, including a bulk water tanker. The RFS send multiple trucks and crews to help, too.
After another couple of hours the fire is mostly out, the roads are open, and two firefighters are being taken to hospital for smoke inhalation.
It’s been five years, and it feels like we’ve learnt nothing.
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