A Firie Tale

She’s a wild, beautiful creature. Dark hair in plaits, bound up under her helmet. I’m studying her hairstyle. I’ve tried everything: pony tails, buns, clips, even a hairnet. To keep the hair out of my face. It gets caught in the smoke mask and pulls, especially when the wind is blowing. Sometimes my hair is in my mouth and I feel as if I’m eating burnt fur.

So I want to see how she does it and how she looks so good, and has so much energy – dancing a crazy jig as she helps with the back-burning of her mountain country. Well, she’s young, isn’t she?

Not like me and my fellow firies from our little rural fire station. We’re all in our sixties or seventies. Still, we might be Dad’s Army but I’d challenge anybody to do the job better than our patient captain, crew leaders, firefighters and drivers.

There’s no crew I’d rather debate with about the merits of coal versus solar power.

Not the bigger, goofy boys, whose generator we borrowed to boil our kettle that day at Yerranderie, the abandoned silver mine, where the Green Wattle Creek fire started, licking the ridge as we waited to protect the village. Up the other side of the flooded Burragorang Valley, where families weekended at NRMA camping sites back in the thirties.

Not the tougher, bearded and tattooed ones or even the nerdy retired accountants from other brigades, who make up our district’s “strike teams”.

And not the ones with women captains, much as I admire them.

No, not even this mob – this energetic woman and the mountain men, who we are working with today, back-burning on the steep slopes leading down to the Wollondilly River. Our Cat One is behind the other trucks heading down the hill. Nowhere to move. We can see spot fires on the other side of the river and the plan is to stop them spreading. The Wollondillians are lighting up ahead of us, running up and down like billy goats—a wiry bearded one is showing his son how to use a drip torch.

I’m on the first aid reel doing fire suppression. It can’t burn too hot or high or it might jump the road and spread. 

One of the mountain men, a short, bearded (they’re all bearded) friendly fellow checks on me. I ask him if this is private land and he says: “Yes it belongs to Jenny and John.” Just like I know them.

“And what’s that river lodge down there?” I ask

“That’s the nudist colony.”

“Did they grab their clothes before they were evacuated?”

He smiles, he’s sure to have heard this joke before.

After a couple of intense hours I need a break. Every time I hose a tree or bush the choking smoke envelopes and almost suffocates me. Stupidly I haven’t put my goggles on and my eyes are streaming as if I’ve been watching some terrible Hollywood tear-jerker.

Thank heavens I’ve done yoga for years, handy training for dragging your body into a truck. You must have three points of contact when you climb in and out. Helmet off, gloves off, try not to drop the two-way radio. Jacket unzipped. Phew, that’s cooler. My hair’s matted and knotty and I swig some water to take the smoky taste away.

It’s getting crowded in here. We're being overrun with snack packs – plastic zip-locked bags of rubbish – burger ring chips, crisps, muesli bars, snakes, lollies. Carbs and sugar to give you energy. My dusty clodhopper boots are squelching the bags on the floor of the truck.

Sometimes we get more substantial lunch bags – with popper juices, sandwiches and even an apple or orange. We’re always grateful for the food.

But they forget to feed us the day we are part of the Yerranderie ‘strike team’. We find some sandwiches in eskies left on the landing strip used by the giant fire-bombing helicopters. How were we to know they were meant for the Fire and Rescue guys?

Our ‘groupie’ calls ahead to Maccas at Picton, asking them to keep it open. At midnight there’s fifty firefighters ordering Big Macs, but one of our crew’s holding up the line asking about blueberry muffins.

“We could defrost them,” says the work experience kid.

“Forget the sissy food,” I groan.

Back in the truck I ever so politely nab the window seat. We dread being the one stuck in the middle – especially on a long drive home - where your knees reach your chin, rendering any replacement operations a waste of time.

Plastic pockets, which hold the fire blankets used in an overrun, are handy for water bottles and my coffee thermos. I always bring boiled eggs too, my long-distance-driving energy-lifters. And special dehydration crystals.

“Swill these around your mouth,” our First Aid officer has recommended.

Late one night I try to stave off exhaustion, making a mess pouring the crystals into my water bottle. The others copy me.

“This’ll keep us going longer than Viagra,” our captain quips.

I award him the best line of the night.

One afternoon we’re driving in convoy with lights and sirens under a threatening sky, thick smoke billowing in the distance. It’s two pm but it feels like the dead of night. Black rain is falling as the inferno creates its own weather. And yet some residents, dressed incredulously in shorts and thongs, still haven’t left. Cars surround their houses ready for take-off but they continue to grapple with hoses and roof sprinklers.

The convoy patrols the road. We’re silent except I swear I can hear someone praying under their breath.

I see a sign for fresh farm eggs. “I know what we can have for dinner?” I say.

“What?” asks a crew member.

“Fried eggs.”

Gallows humour. It’s the only thing that saves you when there’s a massive fire heading your way.