Communal trauma: one GP’s memories from the fire zone

“YEAH, we were in the ember zone for a week. The first two nights, my husband and I took shifts to man the hose and stop the whole house from going up. But after that we just gave up, we were just too buggered. We’d go to sleep not knowing whether we would wake up alive …” My patient’s voice trailed off and her eyes filled with tears.

A friend was spending the Christmas break at her family’s beach shack among the banksia in South Rosedale, a short stroll from the beach. She and her husband had a hunch that this normally safe hamlet, where they had countless fond memories from over the years, could be under threat, although they had no official warning. As potential exit roads continued to close, they decided to clean the house and leave at midnight, driving out through dense smoke and smouldering landscapes, but safe enough. Holed up with relatives in Canberra, the next morning they got the call from their normally steady and calm neighbour. His tremulous voice describing a volcanic eruption of smoke bearing down as he fled to the beach, spot fires behind him every step of the way. He then delivered the news that the house they’d left the night before was engulfed in minutes among exploding gas bottles, reduced to white ash and rubble with other residents unable to help, watching on in horror.

A staff member at the GP surgery I work at lives in the now devastated Conjola Park. She was one of the lucky ones, with 80% of her street’s houses going up on New Year’s Eve, including that of her brother. Her property remained largely untouched apart for some fences and a gazebo. The losses were unpredictable, random, indiscriminate. She seems okay. I hope she’s okay.

ABC regional radio became a group trauma session, as call after call came from listeners, recounting their experiences. Voice pitch was high and speech cadence often quickened. Many choked up, a few cried. Yet they needed to be heard, they needed others to understand and validate. This should not have happened. This was not normal.

On the airwaves, the manager of the supermarket in Milton broke down relaying how his staff, some of whom had lost their houses, worked through the night with camping torches strapped to their foreheads, doling out about-to-become useless perishable food to the locals. The town was under siege, with no power, no phone coverage, no internet and no water.

There were stories of locals giving food, water and emotional support to the thousands of people who had tried to follow the evacuation orders but became marooned overnight and ended up sleeping rough on the Princes Highway.

A few callers would phone in and speak like they had lost a few days, because, in essence, they had. With communications blacked out, they were still unaware of what had happened beyond their immediate experience. Those who’d evacuated from isolated villages had often left loved ones who’d chosen to stay and defend. Not only did they not know if their houses were gone, they didn’t know if their relatives were still alive. Their anxiety was manifest, palpable, and totally understandable.

Regionally, Mogo Zoo became an almost indecent preoccupation. Was it okay to worry about the cheetahs and gorillas when people had lost loved ones, houses, farms and businesses? Yet this, the safety of the zoo animals, was what seemed to threaten to break the spirit of people in the thick of it. There was a collective sigh of relief when we heard that the incredibly brave staff had worked through the night to save them.

Our native animals, we know, were not so lucky. A few days later, our eldest son phoned, almost in tears, after hearing that Coolendel, a stunningly beautiful campsite and wildlife paradise on the banks of Shoalhaven River, was in the direct path of the Currowan fire. The following week he attended his first ever climate change rally.

A new term emerged in our ever-growing South Coast bushfire lexicon: the “visitor exclusion zone”. We were now like some distant war-torn country, where it was not only official government policy to turn away visitors, but as the illuminated signs on the highway bluntly told people: “STAY AWAY”.

Another to add to the vocabulary: “fire refugees”. Anxious men and women in four-wheel drives packed to the ceiling, pets and kids in the back. They would stop at local supermarkets to buy up batteries and camp lights, ice and eskies. Suddenly you had to think differently. To think in a way that you had never had to previously, how to survive this.

My patients talked about the fires – in fact, they talked about nothing else.

What they saw will stay with them, not just the fire trucks roaring past and smoke plumes on a mountain, or even flames or destruction, but the colours in the sky, a new sinister bushfire rainbow.

White haze enveloping cities, grey haze inducing coughs and people to don P2 masks. Brown meant the fire was getting close, with ash sticking in your nose and mouth and black gum leaves raining down. Black was where day became night and fear replaced grumbling anxiety; there was now clear and present danger. And, finally, red skies, where heaven had indeed turned to hell. These were the images broadcast around the world but also stuck in the limbic systems of those unfortunate enough to witness them firsthand.

Respiratory physicians and environmental health experts now postulate on the long term effects of short to medium exposure to hazardous smoke, and seasonal exposure to moderate to hazardous levels of air pollution in cities around the country. There is no precedent for this.

There is also no precedent for so many people and such a huge area being so directly affected by trauma related to bushfire. Not in Australia, not anywhere. As the fire ignited the Australian bush, it also ignited the brainstems of those in the regions affected.

Of course, Australia has always had bushfires, some with greater loss of life than the toll from these fires, so far. However, in this summer of the “endless fire”, vast regions of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, where over 100 000 people live or visit, were directly affected. It will be years before we can truly understand the full effect of this communal trauma.

Dr James Best is a GP working in Nowra on the NSW south coast.

The statements or opinions expressed in this article reflect the views of the authors and do not represent the official policy of the AMA, the MJA or InSight+ unless so stated.