Wednesday 4 - Saturday 7 October 2023 Aftermath of the fire

 

To be honest the next few days are now a bit of a blur. So many different crews came and went, so much was happening that my memory is all of a muddle. 

Here goes:

Early Wednesday morning, as we did our last garden patrol, we noticed, other than the noise of more trees coming down, the silence - no bird song. The only garden kangaroo that hadn't fled, a half blind old doe with a pouch joey, who had sensibly parked herself under the kitchen window and therefore under the house sprinklers and stayed there for the duration, had disappeared sometime during the night.  Stumps and fence posts, which I had sloshed water on repeatedly throughout the night, had reignited. Most annoying. For the first time we really took stock of the damage:

Then we saw our small flock of aged sheep hobbling slowly up the hill, coming for their morning feed. Dreading what we might find we went out to greet them. Upon close inspection they seemed physically unscathed, but were bug eyed and very jumpy. As we fed them we heard in the distance the clanking and rumbling of the Bobcat as it worked its way toward our track.

 Having eaten their pellets and after a long drink we let them into the garden - after surviving the fire we didn't want them squished by a falling tree. It took them a long time to settle. Watching them leap up and run at the sound of every falling tree we realised they were probably stiff and sore from dodging and darting all afternoon and night. When they eventually slept they were so out to it I thought the two 12yo's had carked it. For the next 5 days they wouldn't leave the garden and spent most of time sitting or sleeping.

Coming in for breakfast L realised he was out of some much needed drugs - what to do - our driveway was blocked, the neighbours track had more trees across it and it was anyone's guess what the road out was like.  While pondering the problem, a crew from RFS arrived - the first of many to appear that day. 

Upon being asked it there was anything we needed, L explained his dilemma. After a bit of discussion we were told that as soon as the road was cleared L would be escorted out, but could not be long as he may not get back in. Rang G in Bermi, could he pick up pharmaceuticals, talk his way through the roadblock and get to Cuttagee Bridge?  Rang the chemist and explained the situation. Yes they would give the drugs to G.  Within an hour L was on his way. He returned without mishap with not only the pills but 2 much appreciated food parcels from G - I bag containing milk, bread and healthy stuff, the other decidedly unhealthy stuff - chocolate, in a variety of forms - bliss.

While he was out I recorded some more of the damage:

The downed power lines between us and the neighbours.

Looking across to said neighbours - now we can actually see them!

The SE side of the garden was the hardest hit. I hope the lyrebird residing in the gully survived.

Soon after L's return crews began arriving and departing in a endless stream  - RFS, Forestry, National Parks, RFS housing assessment, Parks professional tree inspection/felling crew, the Police, RFS in trucks, RFS in utes, more Parks - I'm sure I've forgotten some.  So many we didn't get a chance to check out the rest of the property.

An aside:  While explaining L's pill problem to the RFS lady we asked if there was any chance of getting our track cleared of the still smouldering trees lying across it.  She replied that her crew were not allowed to deal with live trees however she would alert the professional team. This struck L and I as rather odd - some RFS crews not being able to deal with trees that are alive? And what an odd thing to say - to us they were definitely now dead trees. It finally dawned on us - in bushfire speak, live trees are trees that are burning or smouldering (even if down and actually dead or soon to be dead). Our confusion wasn't helped by having just 2 hours sleep in the past 24. But it did make us chuckle.

Around 3.00pm the RFS housing assessment team dropped in. As they were leaving their vehicle here (yet another tree had come down across the neighbours track) to walk to the neighbours I asked if they would check on the chooks and if still alive give them a feed.

A half hour later they returned: the three chooks were unharmed and had been fed. The house and shed intact. Joy, some good news to pass on to neighbours.

 They were off to the burnt out neighbours next. Emboldened by their kindness I asked for one more favour and explained:  A sweet little pet piglet going by the name of Lola had been left behind in the vegetable garden. Could they please check on her. If badly injured, please dispatch her, if not catch her and bring her back here.  Well, I think it might have been too much of an ask because I got a phone call about 5 mins  after they left saying they couldn't get to the property and were therefore unable to help with the pig! :(:(  We did get word that evening that Lola was alive and unharmed.

Another aside: We checked on Lola yesterday (11/10) - we haven't seen her for 8 weeks, - she's grown from the size of a small Jack Russell to that of a short legged rottweiler - watching a couple of RFS chaps chase her round the vegie garden and wrestle her into a car would have been a sight to see :) :) no wonder they piked.

At 4.00pm it started to rain - a drizzle at first, increasing overnight; by the next morning we had 60mls in the gauge. What a relief but sadly our big old habitat trees were still smoking and smouldering.

When we did get to inspect the rest of the block, early Thursday morning, it was a bit heart breaking to see the devastation and injured kangaroos whom we could do nothing for.  When we got back to the house, we found more crews loitering around (none of which, I might add, seemed at all interested in putting out the still smouldering trees either in the forest just outside our boundary and opposite the house or on our property) and I asked them advice re the injured kangas. They said ring WIRES (a voluntary wildlife rescue mob). I did and explained the situation and within a couple of hours 4 of them in two cars arrived under RFS escort – 1 shooter, 1 dart gunner and two helpers – and they spent the next four or more hours poking around our property and next door, dispatching kangas and wallabies beyond help, darting and treating some and rescuing what abandoned joey’s they could find. 

Janine and Gary at work.

Thursday also saw the return, under escort, of  our eastern neighbours, tailed by G&R who had brought out lunch and much needed supplies (Wednesday had been our scheduled shopping day). The neighbours in question have the same fire sprinklers as us but their system is automated (Embar) and they left about 1.00pm on the Tuesday. (Ours are meant to be automated but we have a glitch in the system which the installer is still trying to figure out). Their sprinkler system worked a treat and as reported by the chook feeding RFS house assessors, their house was unscathed as was their shed. After lunch G&R left to take the faulty house pump into Bega for us.

Also on Thursday we saw the first birdlife return to the garden - a lone Willy Wagtail, a few wattlebirds, a couple of Eastern Spinebills and unusually a male blackbird.  

A tree below the shed on the day after the fire

The same tree 24 hours later, lost its top.

Friday morning two blokes turned up from Local Land Services - they had come to check our livestock. Our huge herd of 10 geriatric sheep! Now that is service! As most of them were still stiff and sore it was a bit hard for the blokes to tell if their hooves at been burnt. The blokes told us to watch the sheep carefully, looking for worsening lameness and to get them in again on Sunday and check their hooves for signs of cracking and or oozing around the coronet band and if there was, to ring them and they would return on Monday to euthanise any so effected. 

G&R reappeared with the now fixed pump, having got it fixed on the spot (and another lunch - how good are they) and G helped L reinstall it and we lifted the lids on the water tanks to check the water levels. After the 60mls or rain they were both nearly full. Another huge relief.

Another housing assessment team turned up looking for a house marked on their map.  We looked at their map and after a few moments of puzzlement realised it was our shed down the paddock they had marked as a house . They were happy to find the one less house had been destroyed, updated their file and promptly departed.

While we were having lunch a specialist crew from RFS had been working their way down our driveway clearing the 'live' trees that had fallen across the driveway.  I asked them to have a look at the big spottie still smouldering at the bottom of the garden. Three of them studied the tree, did some measurements with a couple of twigs, and said 'yep, if it falls this way it will hit the house'. They brought in a tanker and thoroughly doused the smouldering scar and went closer and studied the tree some more. Final opinion: the scar is very old, the wood beneath the burnt stuff looks healthy and strong, it's got a good chance of surviving. If it falls it will break somewhere along the old scar, thereby shortening its length so it won't hit the house. Two scenarios, they can drop it now and we will be left with a huge clean up or leave it as and if it falls down at a later date we will still have a huge clean up. Hoping it will survive we chose the latter option. 

In the afternoon we got a call from the insurance assessor, he would be with us on Monday afternoon.

Once everyone had departed we started the process of documenting the stuff lost to, or damaged by the fire. After the excitement and anxiety of the last few days it was a tedious task and we were easily distracted by the redneck wallaby and joey that had returned to the garden as had a male Satin Bower Bird, a magpie and a few currawongs. Worryingly there is still no sign of the Superb Blue Wren family, nor the thornbills and Red Browed Finches that call the garden home.

The other thing that happened on Friday morning was the arrival of two Essential Energy crews with some impressive machinery. The two crews worked hard all day, one at each of our neighbours, replacing the destroyed power poles and infrastructure and rehanging the lines.

Out in the paddock there was a stand of gum trees. The horses (when they were still alive) sheep and kangaroos loved to stand/lie under them on warm summer days. The trees cast afternoon shade just where a cool sea breeze blew through. Originally there were 10 trees. Over the years the power line tree people have insisted on cutting them down, one by one. On Friday they cut down three more and now only 2 remain  :(  However at 5.30pm, electrical stuff inside the house dinged and pinged - the power was back on.

Saturday morning we had a sleep in and woke up to an unusual silence - Since Tuesday afternoon we had lived, during daylight hours, with the continual womp, womp, womp of helicopters flying low overhead, most taking water to the fire still burning to our south and then returning for more water.

After breakfast it was silent so L nipped out to fly the drone.  And here is the result.

From RFS site 6 OCT.: "Our building impact assessment teams have completed their ground inspections this afternoon of more than 120 properties affected by the Coolagolite Rd Fire near Bermagui on the NSW South Coast.

The assessments found that two homes were destroyed and further two damaged. 14 outbuildings (sheds) were destroyed with a further 5 damaged. 105 structures were unaffected by the fire.
After initial aerial assessments indicated that possibly more homes had been lost, our ground teams were able to thankfully confirm that these were in fact sheds."

The second home destroyed and one of the damaged ones were a little further up the road.

And finally a pic I found on an RFS website, also taken a little further up the road.