Memoirs of the Pilbara- The Fire (part three)

In the year 2000, I was 8 years old, and lived through one of the most terrifying experiences any person could live through. One of two big bush fires threatened my home, burning through the Port Hedland region of the Pilbara for two months.
“Where’s dad?” I queried as I poured milk into my bowl of Weet-Bix, grimacing at the smell and sight of the quickly softening grey/brown lump of sludge and controlling the urge to gag. It was the weekend so I had taken advantage of the extra sleeping time and stayed in bed late.
My attention returned to the table.
Weet-Bix… the most revolting of all cereals to my 8 year old self (still is), it was also the only cereal currently in the house and a requirement before we even thought about asking for boiled eggs.
“Out fighting the fire” replied my mum as she straightened from strapping my youngest brother, Joshua, into his high-chair. She glanced out the window but not before I saw the fear that clouded her eyes. Joshua began putting his cereal into his bowl quietly.
The table was set in a large square room, a window sat just over the table and a door led into the room from the outside behind us in the far left corner of the room, the kitchen stretched out all along the right wall taken up mostly by the huge bench hutch. Another door to the far right hand corner of the room led out into the breezeway between the main part of the house and the sleeping quarters while another behind us lead into the huge lounge room which had, attached, a smaller study or school room, laundry, toilet and bathroom forming a corner at the end.
Sitting at the table my bare feet skimmed slightly over the cold grey slate tiles and I stared out the window with my mother. I could hear the sounds of the white Corellas screeching in the background and the sound of water away boiling merrily on the stove, such peaceful, normal things.
You could see it would be a hot day, the sun was blazing down on the red sand of the track out front and a warm breeze shimmied through the garden. The front fence had thick tangles of white jasmine blooming along the wire and hundreds of sweet peas cleaved to bigger stronger plants in the straw covered garden beds, sometimes spilling out onto the stone inlaid path. The grape vine which provided shade on the veranda reached its spiraling fingers down from the high roof, spilling in wild abandon, its leaves.
I looked back down to my bowl and lifted a spoon full of the grey sludge to my mouth. EW. I shuddered, chills running down my spin as I swallowed.
My gaze wondered back to the window and I pondered what was happening out on the station and surrounds, if those fighting the fire would all come home safe.
We had only recently come from a holiday in Exmouth on the Western Australia coast a few days previously when the couple whom had been caring for the house and animals had delivered the news.
“There’s a fire coming” they told us “lit about a week ago, going to be here in about two-three days.”
Since then people from Hamersley station (the boss’s home base) had helped fight the encroaching wall of devastation, remains of its untamable ferocity, a wide sweeping ripple across several stations and National Parks.
This fire was a living thing in its own right, tongues of flame reached for the skies and thick clouds of smoke rose into the air, a warning if nothing else.
By the 3 of October it had burnt more then 200,000 ha of land in ten days and had reached us. It jumped ten metre wide firebreaks like they weren’t there and emitted heat so intense that, when one drove through scrub, fire would burst up beside the car left and right, purely from the friction caused by the wheels on the car.
I was washing the breakfast dishes when Matt, the big boss, came up to mum and gave her the run down of the evacuation plan.
A few hours later, close to dusk, Matt ordered us to leave, saying the fire was barely two hundred metres from the house, separated from us only by thick spinnifex and gum scrub, a dry stony creek full of brambles and dried grass. Even in the pre-dusk, the seductively dangerous glow of flickering light filled the sky and smoke was thick on the air.
“We have to go…” her voice was hushed but her hands were shaking as she shoved several family photo albums and wedding photographs into a bag. A frantic energy surrounded us as we hurried to the car.
My heart was beating hard in my chest as I stared out the window of our 4x4 as we drove down the drive; we fled to the ranger’s station in Karajinni National Park, terror pumped through me and my eyes filled with tears as we drove away from my step dad out into the grey and red evening.
The fire was blocking the normal way so we had to take the long route, a good hundred or so kilometer’s of dirt road through the now deepening twilight. We watched from the window, shivering, the flames running like golden ribbons of molten lava down the sides of the mountain ranges to the right, the sight blocked only once in a while by the dark shape of a tree.
It was beautiful, nearly magical and almost completely removed from the savageness of flaming reality that was ravaging the country side as we passed.
We stopped the car and watched a moment; mum pulled her camera out and took a snap shot of time, the image would always be imprinted in our heads; no picture could properly demonstrate the truly frightening reality of that night.
When we finally reached the rangers’ station late that night, they were waiting; they provided beds for us to sleep on and a warm welcome where we were cold with fear.
The next day revealed the blackened ravages of the night, almost unrecognizable stumps where once proud trees had stood burnt lumps of ash where a mound of Spinnifex used to laze. Worst of all, though, was the smell of burning flesh, the silence and the bodies of those creatures unable to escape the deadly flames.
The fire had been stopped by the creek when nothing else could, a creek full of brambles and dried wood had halted the flames.
The fire went on to burn through scrub land toward Tom Price, by the October 12 the fire was in inaccessible country and would not be under control for a long while, tourists were warned away. By the end of the fire on the 1st of November over 320,000 ha of bush had burned.