Currowan fire on NSW South Coast continues to inflict damage two years after it started to burn

The fire burnt for 74 days consuming nearly 5,000 square kilometres of land, resulting in three deaths and the destruction of hundreds of homes and properties.

Bawley Point resident Liza Butler considered herself lucky her home was saved as the fire raged from its origins in the forest, east towards the coast.

“It’s taken nearly two years just to get our garden and damage to the house fixed,” she said.

The damage to her mental health runs deeper.

“It’s just that terror in you having no control of your circumstances.”

Mental anguish set to last

Vince Di Pietro has made a career out of strategic planning and leadership having spent nearly 40 years with the Royal Australian Navy, rising to the position of Commander of the Naval Air Station at Nowra.

He is now the recovery coordinator with the local council and said the community has moved from repairing the physical damage, to continued recovery around people’s mental health.

“Arguably rebuilding and that stuff is the easy bit,” he said.

Captain of the Lake Tabourie Rural Fire Service, Diane Heggie, recalled the strain of fighting the Currowan fire day in, day out.

“We just plotted along every day as it came, it seemed to go on and on… it was like a dream,” she said.

She said after the nightmare was over the fire-fighting community, like the general public, was robbed of a proper recovery period.

“We had floods and then COVID hit,” she said.

“We never saw each other for such a long time unless we were called to an incident because everything was cancelled on us.

“We only really got together about six weeks ago when they opened our training and our meetings back up.”

Shoalhaven RFS Inspector, Chris Palmer also recalled intense days that ran 12 to 14 hours long.

“Quite honestly it was the most challenging time of my career,” he said.

Stretched beyond limits

Inspector Palmer said when the fire front swept across the coast on December 21 and wiped out around 89 homes at Conjola Park alone, resources were stretched beyond their limits.

He said as crews tried to make their way in some cases from Sydney right through to Bateman’s Bay “it went from choreographed battle to a singluar concentration of chaos.”

Writer and broadcaster Bronwyn Adcock wrote a book about the experience: Currowan, the Story of a Fire and Community during Australia’s worst Summer.

Ms Adcock nearly lost her own home and her volunteer fire fighter partner to the fire, so lived through it while reporting on it at the same time.

She said the situation where Conjola Park found itself without water, without fire trucks and without adequate time to flee as the fire surrounded homes raised many difficult questions.

Ms Adcock also turned her attention to building safeguards against it happening again, such as rapid initial attack techniques similar to those used in many fire prone countries in the northern hemisphere.

“Fires were starting in remote areas and the few big water bombers we had were busy trying to defend homes in south western Sydney that had fire approaching them,” she said.

Early intervention needed

“So these fires in forestry areas volunteers would go in, the other professional fire fighters would go in, people would do the best they could to create containment lines to do backburns,” Ms Addock added.

“But really they didn’t have that direct kind of ‘oomph’ to try and do something really quickly before it became too big.”

She said pre-emptive measures around early fire preparation and how to keep essential services operating during extreme fires is another part of what is needed to adapt to future conditions.

“As much as I do think fire fighting agencies and the government need to adapt and change the reality is there are going to be more fires and they are going to be more intense and more often.”

Key points:

• The Currowan fire on the NSW south coast started two years ago, burning for 74 days and destroying hundreds of homes
• Most homes were rebuilt and the bush is recovering, but the psychological damage to those experiencing trauma remains
• The author of a book on the fire believes communities need to be resilient and adapt as there will not always be a fire truck nearby