Indelible Adventures: Burning off

As I sit and listen to the storm outside and thunderous rain on the roof it brings back distant memories of my childhood. As a kid growing up in rural Australia the summers were hot, and I mean HOT!

We got our weather from the far away Indian Ocean, with hot weather fronts moving in off the ocean, the wind would begin to gather speed as it made landfall in lower Western Australia, amassing additional heat and further wind speed as it leapt over the Great Australian Bight before careening into South Australia, after that it was just a matter of time before we copped it in Victoria.

Weather map for this past Jan 14, 2014...told you it could get hot

We'd have weeks in the high 30’s and up to mid 40’s Celsius (90 – 110 Fahrenheit) each summer, although for the most part it would build up and up until we had an almighty storm which was accompanied by a “cool change”, then the cycle would start all over again.

As I reflect back on my childhood summers they all had a familiar pattern to them. We'd have a day or two of clear, blue skies, each day the wind would get a little stronger, the sky a little more grey, but always baking hot – you could fry an egg on the road it was so hot. Then there would be a day when the wind would turn and come at us from the north and it would begin to howl, it felt like a blast furnace.

You could always tell when the wind blew hard from the north we were in for a major storm. These hot and gusting north winds also generally brought with it another more terrifying prospect…bush fires.

With a strong north wind the entire state of Victoria would go on high alert for bushfires These Total Fire Ban days made it illegal to have any sort of fire, including BBQ’s (this part was a killer for as you know all Aussies love BBQ’s!) outside. It was just too dangerous, especially in the heights of summer when the grass and bush was tinder dry and any errant spark could set off a major catastrophe.

We lived on an acre block at the eastern edge of town, it was a small rural community of about 500 people and surrounded by plains and bush depending on which direction you went from town. Our house was surrounded on three sides by vacant blocks of land, with the closest house being about 100 meters from ours. Over the course of the year this land would grow thick long native grasses and by the time summer rolled around it would be at least three feet high, sometimes higher.

Dad lived in Clunes during the last major bush fire that hit the town, known as Black Friday (January 14, 1944). That day 51 people died and over a million hectares of land destroyed as fires devastated the entire state of Victoria. In those days he, his mother and siblings lived in a rented house on Camp Hill in the southwest part of town on the south side of the creek, after his dad had recently died. The Black Friday bushfires burnt much of the town north of the creek including the hospital, which was completely destroyed. I guess dad’s memories were still very strong because as the summer started he would get a little antsy, constantly eyeing the weather and planning his fire protection plan if, and/or when he needed it.

Dad’s plan was simple really but extremely dangerous...some might say even foolhardy but they were far different times than what we're in today.

Early in the summer he'd approach the local Shire council and harangue them about the state of the town and the long grass, and how dangerous it would be if something wasn't done about it.

Bushfires are commonplace in Australia, surprisingly Victoria is the most impacted state...crazy huh?

Then he'd leave it a few weeks as the grass continued to dry then he'd choose a night when the wind wasn't too strong, often in late December or early January and make a Molotov cocktail of kerosene in a bottle with a rag as its wick. Then he’d light it and walk out into the long grass of the surrounding blocks until the fire took hold (often only a couple of minutes) and race back to our block as it went up behind him.

The issue wasn't that dad felt compelled to burn all of the blocks around ours as a fire break in case a major bushfire headed toward the town, but that he failed to tell a soul about his plan. Nope – not mum, us kids or even the neighbours…

As the smoke started to rise from the blazing grass the next thing you'd hear was the town’s mournful fire siren wailing (actually it was a WWII army surplus air raid siren), remember it was only 20 years since the end of WWII. In preparation Dad would have soaked some old bags in water so us kids could use if the fires started to get too close or if flying ash landed on our lawn. Our job was to stamp out any ash or hot spots with the wet bags, but you had to be quick! The flames were very hot and smoke extremely thick so it was a crappy job but it was all hands on deck no questions asked.

It was a sight to behold really, a huge roaring inferno a mere meters from our house, the town's fire siren wailing and mum screaming at dad for being such a bloody idiot. Dad of course was totally oblivious to the melee that was taking place around him as he darted along the fence line with the garden hose in hand as the huge flames approached, he would yell to one of us and direct us to any new hot spots in the yard that he noticed.

Within minutes the town's volunteer fire brigade would arrive with the siren blaring, and fortunately for us stop the fire from jumping the road or burning our neighbours houses.

Ah yes, fun and games at the Wallis household...and you thought Blog night was exciting!

Afterwards, Dad was always unapologetic, even to the local fire chief who’d pull him aside year after year and warn him that he wasn't allowed to burn off the vacant land around our house; these “discussions” were often pretty heated (no pun intended), but Dad’s classic come back was always “I warned the Shire about the dangers of long grass around the town weeks ago, but as usual nothings been done to fix the issue, I'm not sure how it started, but I hold them fully responsible for the near tragedy…". Yes, he often put it on a little thick to make his point.

Now some might think that he was a crackpot, or at best a pyromaniac…and to be fair there is a grain of truth to both but you could see the ruins of the hospital lost in 1944 just a couple of hundred meters further up the hill from our yard, perhaps that why dad was so insistent upon his annual ritual of “burning off” as he put it.

What can I say except that he was both unconventional and uncompromising, but a man who I admired greatly. Fortunately for my neighbours in Toronto there are no vacant blocks of grassland close by... ☺

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This weeks photos come from my shoot last weekend at Niagara Falls. Its been a while since I've been and as usual I was blown away by the breathtaking power and beauty of the Falls.

Enjoy!