From P21down in the worship service and needscomfort and care. The congregationgather round her and Andrew follows upwhen he can.The impact and cost of these firesmoves way beyond the burninglandscape. Andrew gives me two namesof church folk in Corryong to contact:Pamela Menere and Linda Nankervis.Pamela’s voice has the heavy tonesof a weary soul, but she’s happy to talk.Her family came to the Corryong districtin the 1860s. They farmed successfully,raising a dairy herd and establishing thefirst flour mill in the area until the 1939fires destroyed the family farm and sentthem into town, where Pamela lives now.In normal times she doesn’t shop,feeding herself from the extensivevegetable garden, but these are notnormal times. She spent 48 hoursputting out embers around the house atthe peak of the inferno.The fire came at the town from twodifferent directions, two days apart.She left town on the last convoy on5 January, driving through burningroadsides, and was away for two weeks.Some of her friends haven’t come back.Their stone house has burnt to theground, the roof resting on what usedto be the floor, the stone walls standingsentry to nothing and no one.The church hall was used as a wildliferescue station and the manse housedRed Cross volunteers and VCCEMchaplains sent in for a week at a time.The Uniting Fencing team from Benallacamped in the carpark. Pamela madesure they had what they needed.Pamela is the person people contactwhen there’s a need that can’t be metthrough the official systems. She has alist of people waiting for replacementwater pumps to bring water to the stockfrom rivers and dams. They’ve sold outin Albury and are waiting for a truckloadfrom Melbourne. There are a shortage ofrental houses and those who were burntout are struggling find somewhere tolive.Pamela coordinates help and does herbest to make sure people get what theyneed, whatever that might be. Since thefires there have been floods, mud and22rockslides and whole sides of mountainsslipping down on to houses and intoburnt out valleys. There’s a pause inconversation.“On Sunday night,” Pamela begins andthe heaviness in her voice deepens, “my18-year-old nephew took his own life. Hetold his mother he was going fishing anddidn’t return.He was a gentle caring soul who hadbeen rescuing animals all his life. Hisfriends lost their houses and livestock,he experienced the fury of the fires firsthand.“The trauma of seeing all of thedevastation was too much. He’d soughthelp and was on anti-depressants, but itwasn’t enough. He just ran out of hope.He’d graduated from his VCE and hadbeen accepted for an apprenticeship.He’d done his training with the CFAsummer fire crew only two weeks beforethe fires started and had been outfighting fires in the disaster. His deathwill never be counted in the fire statistics,but it should be.”The town is devastated. There aremental health bulletins going out. I askif she wants me to share this story andshe says it’s important. Her prayer is thatthe community recovers without anymore loss of life. She sees the emotionaltrauma on the faces of people in thestreet. The impact of the fires is beyondimagining.There are a lot of people askingPamela why God might have done this.She tells them God didn’t do this, andthat God is in the recovery, in the newgrowth and reviving of nature. God iseverywhere, giving us life. Her faith is herresilience. She’s been caring for a friendwith cancer and has just come homefrom gathering firewood for the winter,there’s still plenty around.Linda Nankervis is a farmer on 1000hectares. That soundsa lot, she says, but it’ssteep, rising country. Soft,undulating, with lots ofhills. I catch up with her onthe phone while she’s visitinggrandchildren in Geelong.They haven’t seen her sincethe fires, so I try not tointrude too long.The fire came throughtwice, days apart. Thefirst time was New Year’sEve and it stopped at theedge of the property. Thesecond time it ran rightthrough them. All up, theylost 39 head of cattle,out of a herd of 880 andpaddocks, and feed, andfences ...They were able to save“Their stone house has burnt to the ground,the roof resting on what used to be the floor,the stone walls standing sentry to nothingand no one.”most of the stock because theyhad the time and facilities tomove them to safer ground.It’s an horrific undertaking tobury your animals. Luckily, theyhad an old excavator. It’s likeany death, you do what has to bedone. The boys took care of theirsone day and their neighbour’s thenext.Linda continues: “Thefrightening thing isn’t thefire, it’s the waiting. Once itcomes, it’s a relief. Our housewas spared, but we slept intown for a week after thefire. Out at the farm it wasconstantly dark, black withsmoke, like 5pm on a winter’snight and hot. Then there’s theacrid smell of ashes. It took usages to get the cattle into twomobs, into paddocks. They crywith distress. For them, it’s likeContinued P24
Farm shed, Sarsfield. 4 March.Image: Rev Ian Ferguson23