 G'day, I'm David Williams from CFA. Today I'm going to speak to two authors, Neil Grant and Adrian Highland. Adrian Highland's book, King Lake 350, is a remarkable story of survival and heroism on Australia's worst bushfire disaster, Black Saturday. Highland argues that our failure to engage with fire is a failure of our culture. He suggests that we're too connected to our computer screens and not connected enough to our environment. He also asks, can we learn from history? Highland himself is doubtful. I remain optimistic and certainly both of us remain hopeful. Adrian, your book is a great achievement. How did you come to write it? I didn't actually set out to write a book. The first thing I should say is that because we knew so many people who died in the fires, and for me the most important thing was why I felt so emotionally involved, I think, was because my youngest daughter was at Strathew and Primary School. They had gone through Strathew and all of her primary school. We lived in St Andrews, but we felt probably more of an emotional attachment to Strathew or as much anyway, and you just sort of build up those friendships and relationships through your children's school. So we felt like everybody, I suppose, pretty emotionally ravaged by it, and I suppose I actually didn't feel, I wrote a few articles and things, one of which was for example about the Strathew in school and the teacher's amazing efforts in getting that school open just a couple of days after it burned down, which was a pretty amazing thing. But I certainly couldn't imagine writing a book about it, but one of us began maybe just talking to Roger Wood, who's a friend of mine, who's a fellow parent at Strathew, and he's also a neighbour of mine, lives along Putnamam's track in St Andrews, and our daughters are both very good friends, and various people who'd been directly either in danger or threatened, who sort of felt they owed him either a debt of gratitude or in some cases their lives just for the way he and his colleagues sort of ran around responding on that day. Yeah, people just sort of time a little glimpse of that story, and I don't think Roger was in a position to sort of talk about it himself for a while either, but gradually over that year when we sort of, he was injured on the day and in the follow-up, and just sort of over over a few discussions we had in the course of those six or eight months after the fires, I had to maybe write a small article just sort of outlying his day, and then somehow just like it just seemed such a massive sort of thing, it just sort of kept growing in my head, and particularly from Roger, if you're really going to, he was a bit extremely reluctant initially to look at me like there were these people from the CFA doing this who we worked with and SES, and I sort of built up a bit of a picture of the whole day, and sort of just through his conversation, through this conversation, so I have with him, and so somewhere in there it sort of grew from wanting to just tell his story to the idea that maybe in telling his story and putting it into a broader context, I could one, pay tribute to all the emergency services people who were out there working, trying to save lives in many cases while they were losing their own homes, and two, try to come to some understanding of it, which is sort of what you do as an artist, and that's where I sort of had these ideas of trying to weave in the science and the ecological history and even the psychology and the cultural history and those sort of things, so it just sort of grew I suppose, in summary maybe about a year after the fire, I think I actually made this a book, I was particularly struck when I heard about some of the fire, like I joined the CFA very soon after the fires, and particularly meeting some of the people at our own brigade in St Andrews, particularly some of the people who met from King Lake, they'd lost their own homes while they were out there, it just felt quite very very touched by that, and quite a few, there was quite a few people from St Andrews either lost their homes or had their families threatened and gone through a really tragic experience, and I just felt, I think I felt compelled to do that, and I had no idea it would actually be published as a book, and I just decided to write it with it, I thought I might have maybe self-published it or do it as a series of magazine articles or something like that, if no one else wanted to touch it. My basic technique was to first just make the initial approach, in some cases people approached me who'd heard I was doing it, look I just had this bit to that and I might have particularly in the CFA there's a little bit of a sort of a network there, someone hears that you're doing it and so it is, and they sort of get back in touch with you. My basic approach was to interview people, and then I would transcribe the interview, show it to them, and then I would rewrite their story, and again I'd show it to them, and there were a lot of them, in every case I was just, actually it's interesting to reflect upon how many things I've got wrong just from people's, you know, just misunderstanding what people were saying, and I think basically from a little I've seen of, you know, journalism and non-fiction writing it seems the closer you know a story the more likely you are to get things on there, but I mean the closer you are to a story the more you'll notice things that they've got wrong, so I basically just would write up the stories and I'd show it to them and then I'd get them to give me their feedback in many, in almost every case there was dozens and dozens of changes. As a novelist were you sort of tempted to write a fictional account to try and bring all these things to bear within a fiction, I mean I can see, because I can see how you've, I can see how you've used, it's definitely you've used a novelist approach in a non-fiction sense you've taken Roger Ward as a protagonist. Yeah I have, yeah. And put him through the, that's sort of the only way I know how to work really, I've sort of, I mean I did, obviously I'm particularly my crime writer and I try and bring some of those, some of those techniques I left things hanging here and there and you know a lot of it's in the crafting of a single sentence, I think people ask me what's the difference between writing non-fiction and fiction and to me there isn't a huge, in the craftsmanship there isn't a huge amount of difference but of course in social relationships and ethics and those sort of things, there's a lot of differences now and I've, I mean basically all these people, almost all of the main characters are my friends and I sort of told their stories. I did approach some people on sort of Roger's suggestion, people I didn't know because I sort of got to know was over the course for the booker who, who were happy to have their stories told. But if in regard to the fiction, non-fiction thing a lot of people there are a lot of things I knew that I didn't want to put in the book or else sometimes people had given me their stories and were initially happy to perceive but then changed their minds for some reason for very understandable reasons and of course so in those situations I just just pulled them out of the book completely. I was really just trying to capture the stories of a handful of people who I knew and writing something which I hope would be in honor of all of the people and even that even goes as far as the some of the stories I wrote of the people who were the victims so many times I drove back from King Lake there with tears in my eyes just some of the things things that people had told me but like it seems often been a matter of luck whether you survived. I mean preparation obviously had a lot to do with it. You guys both know this better than I would being King Lake people but you know we all, I mean I heard stories of people who were brilliantly prepared who perished and others who sort of you know broke every rule in the book and bumbled around and did wrong things and came out untouched you know so so much luck and depending on when the wind chains what it was doing yeah but there's not to deny the importance of preparation now for the same time I've got people I know who are involved in fire brigade groups you know feel that having been in those fire brigade groups saved their lives and some of the preparations they took and I remember one woman I described in the book you know she's she's taken when the she's taken every precaution possible got the beautifully prepared house they've got pumps and you know gravity fed lines inside the house and the fire but then the fire's actually around about to hit them and she's still sitting there thinking this can't be happening this isn't real it's still not going to happen to me and then it does so as I said that odds chance luck it all comes into it it lulls us into a false sense of security I think is part of the concern your chapter fire plan really illustrates how unprepared some really were doesn't it this is just a little scene which Roger Wood described to me on the morning of the fires when a woman came in who was new to the air and had no no idea about what fire plans were what to do about fires and she just asked him should I be worried and I've got this I'll just quote read from read from Rod Wood scratches his head truth she lives in one of the most fire prone communities in the world it's been hit by fire time and again in its 130 year history today is the worst forecast ever and she doesn't know what a fire plan is and she's asking if she should be worried so I suppose I wanted to quote that as an example of just you know how we as a culture tend not to be very engaged with our environment there were those who prepared and prepared well they activated their fire plans they had fire plans some left early others arranged their defences they primed the pumps laid out the hoses gave the property a final cleaner but there are many more who did few if any of those things there were some even in positions of authority who suspected that major conflagrations were a thing of the past who are so much more sophisticated now we had sky cranes and water bombers improved communications bigger better trucks and of course we had the internet the cfa website gave you regularly updated summaries of all fires reported across the state if there was any danger surely the authorities would let you know there was even talk that the drought itself had made a mega fire unlikely that after 12 years desiccation there simply wasn't enough fuel left to sustain a monster fire and if by any chance a fire does come you know the routine let the main front pass give it maybe 10 minutes then nip outside start up the pump if you've got one if not to mop and a bucket should do the trick there was that fellow in angles here Nash Wednesday back in 83 save his entire street with a mop and bucket extinguish the spots remain vigilant watch for further outbreaks way to go fire seems to appear as a character throughout the book I think in some ways the fire is a character in the book and again that probably harks back to experiences with Aboriginal communities where they would have would have had that sort of idea of of nature being that way um I suppose my I think I I reckon I think that section there we're talking about the change when the when the fire can sort of forms into these tornado type things and they can sort of come it could be coming at you from the back that's where I was calling it a snake in the grass then I use the metaphor of it being a hydrated monster because I um which will be more the fact that I did classics and Greek in my original degree and anything that than fire science but these are some of the images that sort of spring to mind you use very interesting language to describe fire throughout the book perhaps take us to a part which shows this we're describing the change now when when different weather systems collide and the fire grain goes berserk on the fire ground it's the horror moment the slow-mo sequence the snake rearing in the grass if you do think if you do think of it as a reptile it may help to imagine it as one that suddenly transformed from a single slithering serpent into a hydro-headed monster you make a point a number of times throughout the book about how people were looking at their computer screen and not being aware of what's happening outside I mean that's the thing that one of my the images I got from talking to a lot of people involved in this thing was a people just seemed so dependent upon technology that they were losing touch with their senses this was actually one of the most astonishing I'm still like I'm sure it was it was from Frank Allen who's a very experienced done a fantastic lieutenant out of King Lake West who contacted the Kangaroo Incident Control Center at around 2 p.m. to ask about the fire and he was stunned to realize that they didn't even know that that because it was still a formerly part of Kilmore's responsibility the Kangaroo grand people he spoke to didn't seem to know about it and he just assumed that they were so busy looking at their computer screens they hadn't actually stepped outside but of course that was an image I heard lots much from the CFA but from individuals through the whole of the community I had lots of examples of people who's as I said somewhere whose whose last contact with the outside world was via a computer screen which told them that the fire that was coming over the hill and in fact about to kill them was um still a grass and scrap fire back in Kilmore 30 kilometers away on page 143 you use imagination to describe a family caught in the bushfire and it's quite powerful you know I just I just tried to sort of imagine what it was like only somebody who's lived through that dread filled noise can begin to imagine what it's like it's still kilometers away but the air shakes and the trees shiver the ground begins to vibrate cockroaches and ants scuttle for cover disappear into cracks in the ground then it rips into your eardrums your brain into the depths of your being soon the rooms fill up with smoke the alarms go nuts the kids and the dogs go mad the walls bubble the ceilings glow red ribbons run along the crossbeams burst into open flame you creep crab like to the door and by christ it's still too hot out there and you wonder when it'll be safe for you to go outside the realization falls on you like a cold hand the one cold thing in this black hell it never will be safe outside not for you your life the regrets the joys the unfinished business the chances half taken the words of love unspoken the precious pitter patter of irrelevance cavalcades through your head time storms and the blood stands still as you huddle under the blanket and gaze at each other in disbelief you watch their faces twist their eyelids grip their foreheads red reflected pain you stroke their hair you tell them it will be all right and it will be you kiss their devastated lips and pray that it will be quick your final chapter reflections seems to be a personal essay what were you trying to achieve in that chapter i suppose i wrote the reflection i just wanted to synthesize the thoughts and insights i'd had into fire during the course of the writing of the book to think about what fire meant for us and for our culture and our future particularly in the light of the changing environment that we live in and also the demographics of the fact that people are moving out into into the bush i just struck with it the way the world is changing the way our population is changing it's it's a pretty important it's just an important physical thing that we need to learn to live with and if we don't learn that not just fire but the environment itself if we don't learn to respect it then ultimately there's no escaping but ultimately going to come around come back and bite you i'm really interested in what you say on page 245 then when the unthinkable occurs we search for scapegoats it's all the fault of the cfa the dse the local council the tree changers the police the greenies it's always somebody else the accusing finger sweeps out searching for a target only rarely does it turn back towards its owner yeah that's how i feel i suppose at the whole but if we're going to live here we just need to take it seriously and we can't oh there's still people who seem to expect the fire trucks going to rock up and protect their house if if a fire does come anything about a town like king lake now there's two fire trucks for i don't know how many hundred houses there are there but the only one you've really got to rely upon is yourself and really for me if you're sure that if you'd if you'd take the advice that it's the best wooden that we have in our culture at present is that you know you're either going to be well prepared or you just don't be there you've got to leave early you seem to be quite touched by the plight of the emergency services personnel who did their best on the day that was one of the sadder things i found that almost all of the essential services people i spoke to be their police rangers or um you know said very often they felt particularly those have been really badly hit themselves felt a sense of guilt as if they had someone's well they've been out there heroically doing you know trying to defend their community is it obviously had still been a disaster and a lot of them seem to carry you know a certain guilt and often because of the sort of people who contribute to community organizations that are very good hearted people they will feel of a sort of a feel a sense of failure from my descriptions of what other people have given to me it did say that there were quite a few people who did behave very heroic that was why i decided to focus on a minor handful and so we do need to acknowledge that i think and give them the respect that that they deserve particularly given that most of those people who perform those heroic deeds came out of it pretty badly they came out of it pretty scarred a lot of them had a lot of them had um you know psychological trauma and post-traumatic stress and things like this and we're also very worried about their own families and so and and also in a sense in some ways though it was their job to sort of make up for the failure of the rest of us the first sentence in your book is we were lucky at first the last is what are the odds do you feel that we've learned from the past it's a reflection on how the fire has changed the way some of the people involved think about the bush and the fact that they're sort of more aware of it being just an eternal fires being an eternal just a component of that world we're going to have to live with we've discussed a musical comedy written by one of the most deeply affected people the community and what a heart heart-rending and you know bravura performance it was i say a few meters from the bush the bush is a few meters from the hall the bush is stirring tendrils twist tendrils twist and creep trifid like buds are bursting seeds are responding with astonishing alacrity to the twin forces of fire and water the growth this year has a wild profusion most observers have never seen looks like an oil slick to me now comments firefighter dimer cloud as she surveys the lush new growth a year or two the fire threat will be worse than ever in millions of homes across the country residents switch off the television adjust the air con kill the lights and slip into bed some on the fringes of the city might spare a thought for the looming summer threats but few will do much about it really what are the odds so i suppose it is harking back to the idea that i suppose in one sense that people like the firefighter dimer cloud have sort of been somehow to carry the carry a burden from the rest of us because she was also very much involved in the defense of the community there but for the bulk of our society is not taking it seriously and we've well sadly many of us will fail to learn the lessons which is a black Saturday which is why i wrote the book really to try and bring those lessons home to a wider audience