I just have something to talk about that is a bit off the beaten trail. I hope it’s not too boring for you guys.
For Easter this year I drove through Kinglake to get to my friend’s farm. Two and a half years ago most people would not have known Kinglake and now how could you not know it. I didn’t know very much about it, only that it was one the way to my friend’s farm.
My first real experience in Kinglake was Wednesday 11th February 2009. We had heard that they needed horse people to help vets assist burnt and injured horses. I travelled up the mountain with my friend and a bushfire survivor. Everything was black. The smell I cannot explain. Trees stood as skeletal silhouettes. The ground was hot through my boots but the air was chilling. There was no green. The fire had come so fast and strongly that some birds where still in the trees, burnt of course. It looked like the end of the world. I ended up working with the RSPCA and small animals that day. We were given areas by landmark (the street signs were piles of ash) to go carefully into properties and search for peoples pets that were missing. An SES crew member said “Okay, guys it’s really important you don’t look too closely, some of these places haven’t been searched yet and we don’t want you to see anything you don’t need to”. I found 2 cats, a red heeler and a goat alive. The red heeler sat on my lap the whole way back into town shivering, the tips of his fur where melted and his paws burnt.
I drove through last week and the trees are just not what they were. The bush is trying to regenerate. The burnt outlines of eucalypts are covered in new shoots of intense green, the juvenile foliage one day to become the canopy. I am amazed how it has changed. Each time I drive through the region my first reaction is ‘wow, look how much it has grown’ but then I get to the Kinglake West post office which is still joined with the milk bar, and it’s still a portable in a service lane. When I get here I think about that red heeler. It just shows how long it's going to take to restore this place.
It must have been terrible to see those injured animals, you'ed have to be pretty brave to go up there, especially if you don't know what you'll find. But a great thing to do, I wish I had realised they'ed need help like that up there but was too distracted with my own animals and people. I know some of our animals were really vulnerable to the fires that day it's lucky that they did'nt get to us. We left the horses free in the paddocks with clipped mains and shorty tails that summer as it was miserable for them with flies but mains tails and rugs would catch alight, plastic halters would melt and metal buckles turn burning hot. And free they could run through the flames, but realistically in our area the would probably have been too intense. And in retrospect evacuating them early would have been best. I sometimes go up to Kinglake and am amazed at the regeneration I see in the landscape there though at the tops of some ridges the trees have died due to the intensity of the fires. The fire was more intense, I'm told, because of the drought, the lack of recent rain, the prolonged period of the lack of a smaller less intense fire which is important to the ecosystems there and which should also have reduced the dead burnable material. Combined with that the extreme weather conditions aswell. striking a balance between keeping the dead matter (that acts as fuel for a fire)down amongst areas near human and livestock living areas looks to be an important but difficult thing to do. That was a long comment, but maybe it'll be extra marks for me! Thanks Lia, from Lily. Beautiful horse by the way.
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