Huon Valley’s bushfire recovery a long time in the making
23 January 2021
Published by https://www.abc.net.au/
AUSTRALIA – Dale Fullard sits atop his outdoor dining table, playing guitar and singing.
In the distance the sun, shimmering off the water of the Huon River that snakes along the banks of his property, paints an apparent idyllic setting.
But a closer inspection of the trees that are still black to the touch and of melted glass littered on the ground speaks of a tragic past.
Fullard, 50, is a poet and singer more commonly known by his moniker and stage name ‘Hairy Man’.
He’ll tell you he started shaving when he was 12.
Fire it came down and swept the valley clean,
Took away my home, took away my dreams.
The fire Fullard’s ballad refers to is the Riveaux Road fire of January 2019, which along with the Gell River and Great Pine Tier bushfires burned more than 200,000 hectares including significant parts of Tasmania’s World Heritage Areas.
Six homes were lost, including Fullard’s located near Ta Ann’s Southwood veneer mill, which was also severely damaged and recently announced it would not reopen.
He now lives in his workshop that was thankfully spared by the flames.
His gravelly voice echoes around the hills, uninterrupted by any other sound — and that vacuum of noise is what upsets Fullard most.
Two weeks after the fire, Fullard was interviewed by local media and extolled the aid offered by his local Huon Valley community.
For Fullard, who lives a private life, “the intensity of help after the fire was very overwhelming”.
“I had so many people stepping up to the mark and helping me out,” he says.
That included strangers; one who slipped some money into Fullard’s pocket one day when he was in town and then casually walked away.
That particular interaction brought the bushman to tears.
But as winter approached, the blackened and scorched trees enveloped Fullard.
Fullard understands the trappings that come with living remotely but even trying to obtain a new birth certificate after it perished in the fire created a lot of anxiety.
“It became very frustrating to involve myself in the assistance … it took up so much time and you see the wheels of bureaucracy don’t seem to turn very well at all,” he says.
It takes more than 30 minutes to drive between Hairy Man’s property and that of Rita Helling in Glen Huon, although barely 5 kilometres separate them as the crow flies.
Dr Helling, 77, also lost her home in the 2019 fires. Like Fullard, she lives alone and has already rebuilt, doing “about 80 per cent of the work” herself.
A PhD in philosophy might explain Dr Helling’s optimism post fire.
“When I see trees that are burnt, I do still feel sad but they are resilient, just like me,” she says.
She is thankful for all the help she received immediately after the fire — but pays special tribute to the members of her local performing group, the Cygnet Singers.
“It’s like a family and there was so much support and that went on for a whole year,” she says.
South of Huonville, Tahune Adventures’ Ken Stronach has had a testing 24 months since the fires.
He is imbued with a social responsibility to other businesses in the region knowing that, “whether we like it or not, we’re the primary attractor for people to travel past Huonville”.
The tourism attraction was evacuated on January 21, 2019.
Remote area and volunteer firefighters embedded themselves at the visitors centre.
The iconic airwalk was saved but parts needed to be re-engineered.
Stronach and his landlord, Sustainable Timbers Tasmania (STT), worked for 13 months and reopened on February 29 last year.
“We traded for 3 weeks and a day until we had to close because of the pandemic,” he says.
Even with this second punch to the guts so soon after the bushfires, Stronach hasn’t been knocked down,
Tahune Adventures resumed seven-day trading on Boxing Day.
Stronach is in touch with other tourism operators statewide and agrees with their consensus that numbers are only at about 50 per cent this summer due to COVID travel restrictions, which concerns him heading into winter.
“Should we have to go back to operating only a couple days a week it won’t be sustainable, particularly if we lose JobKeeper,” he says.
“Even though it’s a private operation now, I still feel we have a social responsibility towards the Huon Valley and when I say we, I mean STT and the State Government.”
So two years on, what are the lessons to be learnt?
Bec Enders was sworn in as Huon Valley Mayor only eight weeks before the 2019 fires.
When Huon Valley residents were evacuated, the community set up an evacuation centre at the Huonville PCYC and adjacent football ground that looked after hundreds of residents.
Cr Enders understands “in a climate-changing world, of course the bushfires will be longer and they’ll be more fierce”.
With that knowledge, she posits one of the most important learnings for future bushfire disasters.
“People are recorded and then moving to a new safe location.”
An independent operational review of the management of the 2019 fires was prepared for the Tasmanian Government by the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (AFAC).
They listed nine recommendations to improve Tasmania’s response to future bushfires.
In July of last year, Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Management Mark Shelton announced expressions of interest for Tasmanian volunteers to be trained to join the specialist remote area firefighting capability, which was one of AFAC’s recommendations.
This recommendation “remains in progress, with the recruitment of volunteer remote area firefighters currently at 20 of the 80 required”, a government spokesperson said, with the other eight recommendations being implemented.
Green shoots push out of the eucalypts surrounding Dale Fullard’s bush block.
They are recovering, but slowly, much like Fullard.
Being involved in his own recovery and empathising with all those affected by the devastating bushfires last summer has given him time to think.
“I do believe we live in a wealthy country and the wealth is not necessarily money, it’s also knowledge”.
