Episode 2 of the Burnt podcast explores the aftermath of the 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires in the Australian communities of Cobargo and Mallacoota. It examines the government's response, the resilience of locals who came together for support, and the profound impact of the disaster on people's lives.
Five years on from the Black Summer bushfires, many people are still dealing with the loss and grief of what happened, and how they were left to pick up the pieces. This series focuses on one devastating summer, two communities, and the collective grief and determination they needed to get back up on their feet after disaster. This is Episode 2 of Burnt, an SBS Podcast.
While around 80 per cent of Australians were affected by Black Summer from 2019 to 2020, many of the people and places hit directly by the fires are still feeling the impacts. When she was first able to return to the area safely, Jann says it wasn't long before what's known as disaster tourism started to happen.
“They'll be pleased I'm coming back, I'm sure, but they know that, you know I don't hold a hose mate and I don't sit in the control room. That's the brave people who do that are doing that job, but I know that Australians would want me back at this time, after these fatalities, and so I'll happily come back and do that.”
At least 13 were 'holding the hose', with nine firefighters killed on duty and four just trying to defend their homes. As the young woman tells the Prime Minister the town needs more help, the video shows Mr Morrison letting go of her hand and walking away, quite literally turning his back as a local councillor shushes her and pulls her aside.
“I love this little village. I'm deeply, deeply connected to it and I've been really fully embraced into it. You get the old adage with little country towns that you've got to have a grandma buried up in the cemetery and whatever. Well, I've done heaps of funerals up in the cemetery and other ceremonies. So I've become connected and brought into the community family with trust and respect and through being involved in volunteer stuff.
“I think communities have learned a lot. I don't think governments have sadly, well, some aspects of government, like local council, of course. I think there's some really, really good people at that local level. But the further away it gets from the communities, the worst it is. It's. But I think people have learned, I've learned an awful lot.”
After a few meetings, a proposal was presented to locals, to form the Mallacoota and District Recovery Association, or MADRA.With oversight from the Victorian Electoral Commission, the committee, the first of its kind in Victoria, held elections and got to work. For many in more regional communities, the sheer distance from the cities where state and federal governments are based means people often feel like their needs as a group aren't fully understood by politicians.
“For example, some people's blocks of land once they'd been burned, were then reclassified as flame zone or bushfire alert level 40, which means that all of a sudden what they can rebuild is vastly different. The budget for rebuilding is enormously difficult, and that became enormously difficult with covid and all the things that have happened in the world anyway. Plus, for us, you add on remoteness, we don't lost 123 homes.
He says while younger people weren't always hit the hardest initially, seeing the pain their parents and mentors were going through often passed over to them. “ I'm so very glad to be able to have a caravan over there and a living pod, which is serves in an emergency situation, but at the moment that's still providing shower, cooking, facilities, refrigeration, those sort of things, which is just bloody awesome.
The centre, which was opened in the immediate aftermath of the fires, was only closed earlier this year.
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