Just before the pandemic hit, images of Australia engulfed in flames were seen around the world. Three years later, this catastrophe may already seem far away, but on the spot, traces of the devastation are still apparent. The invisible but vivid memories of this painful event also remain etched in the daily lives of the Australians we met.
Mallacoota is a small town in the southeast of the country, halfway on the coast between Sydney and Melbourne. About a seven-hour drive from these major centers, the community of 1,000 people on the edge of the Pacific has remained sheltered from major housing developments. Kangaroos bask on private grounds. And nature, watered by the rains of recent years, is lush.
But if you look closely, under the overflowing foliage, the bark of the trees is black — like a scar inflicted by the fires that have passed through there. Mary O’Malley, who was vacationing in Mallacoota to celebrate the New Year when ‘bushfires’ hit the small town on December 31, 2019, doesn’t need tree bark to remember that time tragic.
The one who has now moved permanently to Mallacoota, the region of her husband’s birth, has remained deeply marked by what happened. Along the coast, where she takes us for a walk, rows of tea trees — or Melaleuca alternifolia — completely charred overlook the beach.
“We could hear the cries of pain of the koalas trapped in the burning trees. It was unbearable. There was also the sound of gas explosions. The sky was red, then completely black. It was… the apocalypse,” she recalls, tears in her eyes, while preventing her little dog Oki from venturing off the coastal path. “You have to watch out for snakes,” she warns.
A huge disaster
Australians now call it “Black Summer”, but this fire season, which admittedly peaked in the summer, between December 2019 and January 2020, lasted just over half a year.
Following months of severe drought and fueled by record heat, the fires have destroyed more than 24 million hectares in Australia — the equivalent of 500 times the area of the island of Montreal.
More than 3000 houses were destroyed, 33 people died directly during these megafires, and 450 others died as a result of smoke inhalation.
And the fumes were so intense that it temporarily depleted the ozone layer by 3% to 5% in 2020, recently highlighted a study published in the scientific journal Nature.
When the fires reached the small town of Mallacoota, its inhabitants and tourists found themselves trapped there. “We couldn’t leave. We took refuge at the port because the only road that allows us to enter and leave the city was closed for security reasons,” explains Mary O’Malley.
She and her family stayed there for about three days before a military ship came to pick them up and some 1,200 others — the largest sealift in Australian history. About 500 other people were evacuated by air.
“We consider ourselves Australia’s first climate refugees,” says Mary. Moreover, she believes that it is because the former Australian Conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison did not take the climate issue seriously that he lost the elections in May 2022 against his Labor opponent.
“Australians were very angry with him because he went on vacation to Hawaii in the middle of this disaster. On the radio, he defended himself from not being there because he was not the one who could put out the fires. “I don’t hold the hose, mate!” he said. [“Ce n’est pas moi qui tiens le tuyau d’incendie, l’ami !”] People haven’t forgotten that phrase, nor have they forgiven him for his inaction on climate change. »
Slow and difficult healing
After the drama of the fires followed that of the pandemic. “It was very difficult for the community not to be able to find each other, to hold each other tight to get up. People had to grieve on their own,” said Carol Hopkins, president of the Mallacoota and District Recovery Association.
“Climate disasters not only have a devastating effect on the territory, they also have an impact on people’s mental health”, underlines the one who also helped to coordinate the efforts of the Red Cross during and after the fires.
On the terrace of a small local café, four septuagenarians are seated on a hot Saturday morning in February. The companions each have a hat on their head to protect themselves from the sun which is already beating down hard.
Were they there during the big fires? The acolytes nod in unison. “We had never seen anything like it before,” says Brian Page, in a typically Australian accent, under the approving gaze of the group. “And he even lost his house,” he adds, pointing to his friend Graeme Norman, seated next door and who lives a few kilometers further, in Wangarabell.
Graeme Norman pulls his phone out of his pocket to search through his photos for evidence of the damage, which he eventually finds. Twisted sheet metal and ashes under a gray sky.
In Mallacoota district alone, which includes the village where Graeme lives, 123 families lost their homes to the fires. Of the 79 houses to be rebuilt, only 27 have been completed, the Australian daily reported. The Age last December.
Pandemic-related health restrictions and rising construction costs crippled the efforts of people who lost everything and needed to rebuild their lives.
Graeme Norman, he does not know if he will one day be able to rebuild his house, for permit reasons. “I have no right to have it rebuilt on the same land, because it is vulnerable to fires. On the other hand, I am authorized to do so on flood-prone terrain. Where is the logic ? he wonders.
The man welcomes us to his home the next day to show us around his modest collapsible modular house, which he has used as temporary accommodation for three years. All around: fields, where Graeme Norman raises cattle.
“I was able to save very little,” he says. Luckily, my animals were spared. Those of my neighbor had their paws burned. »
While he has been dispossessed of everything, Graeme Norman approaches the situation with a certain fatalism. “People ask me how I managed to deal with it. I answer them: we have to pick up what we have left and continue to live. We can run away, scream, be angry… but in the end, it leads nowhere. It’s like that. »
In total, his material losses amounted to 100,000 Australian dollars, according to his estimates. “I had insurance…but I was underinsured. And anyway, I’ve lost too many things that insurance can’t replace,” he says, emotion in his voice.
“Family photos, sweaters that my mother knitted me when I was young, my father’s old tools,” he lists. “But I prefer not to think about it. »
Like a sword of Damocles
Graeme Norman also doesn’t want to think too much about the possibility that fires of such magnitude could occur again.
It must be said that after the fires, Australia experienced three years of cooler and wetter conditions than average due to a prolonged episode of La Niña. The fires were followed by flooding in some areas.
However, these same conditions, which allowed nature to be reborn from its ashes by promoting the regrowth of plants, could have sown fertile ground for “grass fires”. According to the Climate Council and Emergency Leaders for Climate Action (ELCA), Australian authorities should prepare for widespread grass fires on a scale never seen before, starting this year.
Another alarming fact: according to experts from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the number of fires around the world could increase by 50% by 2100, and governments are not sufficiently prepared.
“After the fires, we put the energies necessary for the recovery of the community. However, I fear that we are not sufficiently prepared if a hot and dry season reoccurs. It’s a concern,” says Carol Hopkins, who works with the Australian Red Cross.
Graeme Norman, for his part, has already thought of buying a used fire truck to protect himself from a possible new fire. But he can’t afford it. Could he share the costs with his neighbours? No way. “If everyone pays equally, which house will be saved first? he wonders helplessly.
This report was financed thanks to the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund.The duty.