Victoria's bushfires one week later: the media's coverage of Black Saturday

It's been a week since the bushfires (all 400 of them) swept through the state of Victoria, Australia, leaving tragedy in their wake. Over 200 people died and 7000 homeless, and many more were injured. The weekend newspapers here released special editions today, much of which have been published online, and provide a comprehensive overview of the catastrophe with excellent coverage of the many heartbreaking stories of the last week. If you're just catching up on the news now, check them out:
The Australian newspaper's Special: Victoria's Bushfires includes pieces such as How the Battle for Victoria was Fought and Lost, which conveys the dread felt by firefighters who predicted the catastrophe based on the weather and circumstances that day; Life or lifestyle warns fire chief explains the 'tree-change trend', where people have been choosing to escape urban life for a bush lifestyle, settling amid dense vegetation, and ingoring demands to reduce bushfire hazards; while The day a spot of bushfire fun turned to terror well explains the terror at Kinglake, where the ferocity of the fires took everyone by surprise, decimating the hilltop community. The writer describes how people covered in burns came down the mountain on Sunday and said: "It was a firestorm." "It was an inferno." "It was like a bomb went off, like Hiroshima." "It was a massacre up there." and "I spent the night hosing down bodies." Also read this story on how Residents brace for visit to burnt-out ground zero.
The Age's coverage entitled Our Darkest Day begins with a story on the class action suit the people of Kinglake, who believe a fallen powerline started the fire, are planning against the government-owned power company and includes scores more stories, a compilation of articles from the last week, and dozens of photo galleries, and video and audio reports, but if you only read one story, read On the Edge, which argues that public policy is to blame because "One of the many paradoxes of Black Saturday is that the authorities were able to predict the conditions, including the lethal wind shift later in the day, but not the consequences of what their computer modelling was telling them. Brumby, the Victorian Premier, advised the public that the impending danger would be greater than Ash Wednesday in 1983 or Black Friday in 1939." Yet, as the writer claims, none of the general alerts were backed up with timely and specific information on the day.

Victoria's bushfires: radio to the rescue

Who would have thought Radio would become the media hero during Victoria's bushfire tragedy. But radio, that old-fashioned medium my grandparents called 'the wireless', has proved to be the most vital media of all, in fact, far more useful than the Internet and television. That's partly because the radio has become a quasi 'bush telegraph'. The bush telegraph being that magical means of communication (AKA 'the grapevine' or 'rumour mill') that spreads news across vast distances through word of mouth - something that was already alive and well in rural Australia, enacted daily via the mobile (or satellite) phone, text-messaging, the Internet, Facebook and Twittering. However, on the weekend when phone lines were congested, power was cut, and checking websites or email was the last thing on the mind of people escaping infernos, radio was what everyone relied upon. It was via radio that the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) and it's excellent rural radio service more precisely, communicated updates and advice from the Country Fire Authority as to when people should activate bush fire survival plans, when they should evacuate, which areas to avoid to stay safe, which roads were open or closed etc - information that saved the lives of those able to listen. We listened constantly. And we've left the radio on ever since. On Saturday, the day the most devastating fires hit Bendigo, I was checking the CFA's website for more detailed advice, but the website was often updated too late - in a couple of instances, several hours after the radio had broadcast the important information we needed. The radio proved to be a lifesaver to so many. And in the wake of the disaster it's been relied upon to get news of loved ones separated while evacuating; reporters have been broadcasting from community centres across the state, giving airtime to individuals to let their family know their location. They've allowed people to get on air and make announcements: from government reps telling victims where to access funds, food, shelter and free mobile phones, to op shop staff thanking people for donations but calling for volunteers to help sort those donations. One man offered up accommodation at his caravan park to people now homeless. Equally as important, reporters have handed over their mics to people simply to allow them to tell their stories, to share their horrific experiences, their loss, and their grief. That shared experience, that shared mourning, will no doubt help the healing process of individuals, of the community, and of the country. Radio has demonstrated it's still very much a vital part of people's lives here in Australia. That's not to say people haven't been using social media, they have; read this article on ABC News: Social media explodes in wake of deadly bushfires. It's just that radio came to the rescue in a way no other media could.

Victoria's bushfires: random reflections on the trivial and the tragic, mostly the tragic

We haven't been affected by these bushfires in the way so many others here in Victoria, Australia, have very tragically been. We experienced a fright on Saturday: our hearts were racing at the thought of a possible evacuation that we were unprepared for, and the adrenalin was rushing as we packed bags, put wet towels under doors, watered down dry grass etc, and, Saturday night was a sleepless one, wondering if the wind changed whether embers would head our way and spark a fire that might burn down my family's house or their neighbours' homes. But we didn't have to evacuate, the fires stopped over a kilometre away, there were no embers, and my aunt and uncle's home, unlike so many others in this state, escaped the devastation of others. We're fine and have returned to our everyday existences: my aunt caring for her huge family of pets, and beautiful garden and house; my uncle, a psychiatrist on a fly-in fly-out arrangement working in Karratha can stop worrying; and Terry and I are back at our desks and busy writing. But no matter how much I try to focus on work, random thoughts keep appearing and I can't help but reflect on events of the last few days. My mind wanders from the trivial to the tragic. From silly things like why I didn't take photos. My mother said to me on the phone from Perth "I expect you've shot lots of photos - they'll be great to see". But no we didn't. When the smell of smoke started to enter the house, helicopters were hovering in the sky nearby, and outside it was even hazier than Mexico City, taking photos was far from my mind. I was too concerned about my aunt, her animals, their house, and our own valuable things. (What if six months of research materials went up in flames? How would we write these books then?!) It wasn't until after, when the air started to clear, that I thought of taking photos, but then it was too late. Sorry, Mum. But then there are the tragic stories I've been listening to on the radio and reading in the papers that I can't get out of my mind: the couple who were running to safety when the woman looked behind her to find her husband gone; a father who put his children in the car, darted into the house to get something, and returned to find his vehicle with the children inside in flames; or the residents of one community, their convoy of cars lined up in the middle of a road, them sheltering inside, the colossal flames sweeping through bushland either side of the road, who must have been wondering if the fire would engulf them... But if my mind keeps returning to the catastrophic events of the last few days, I can't imagine how the poor souls who were in the thick of it - people who lost houses, spouses, parents, neighbours, and children - must feel and how and what they must be thinking. I imagine they can't escape it. My heart goes out to them.

Pictured? A typical country landscape from southern Australia for people wondering how the country could go up in smoke so easily.