Suffocating in Sydney
By Louise Herbert and Memphis Bourne Blue
On the 12th of November, while jogging, I found myself having difficulties breathing. At first, I thought it was due to my laziness and the fact that I had barely trained all semester. But as I turned back to look up at the sky, I realised that the normally clear blue had changed colour. I had been running with an impressively heavy blanket of dark clouds pressing down on me.
Since this jog, over the past few weeks, Sydney’s almost summer sky, has been frequently crowded with orange and brown clouds. These serve to act as a reminder of the bush-fires that have been ravaging the New South Wales North Coast and much of Queensland.
Over the past week, Sydney’s skies became relatively blue again and temperatures decreased, but the situation is nonetheless critical. With temperatures spiking today (Tuesday), the smog redescended, causing many hospitalisations for breathing related issues. This again reminded Sydney-siders of the battles facing those to the North of the state. In NSW and Queensland, almost 3000 firefighters are currently mobilised to put the bushfires out.
To the North of Sydney, communities have been experiencing sporadic and increasingly frequent fires for more than three weeks. Julie Cole, a resident of Forster-Tuncurry, spoke about how going through areas where bushfires had ravaged was like driving through a war zone.
In speaking about driving from Tuncurry to nearby town of John’s River, Julie said: “I was almost in tears driving through the place because the wildlife was one of the things that came to my mind. What are they going to do?”. She adds that, driving through, you can see that “this bush has just burnt through to nothing, and you can see homes there that you didn’t even realise were there. Every now and then you come across a home that is just a mound of nothing. Bent iron, busted bricks, smouldering nothing. Then you drive along a bit further and then you can see where the fire brigades have been able to save a house”.
Despite having flames come within 25 meters of her house, and Julie remains very positive, saying that social media and apps such as the NSW Rural Fire service app have been a fantastic help keeping everyone alert of the danger. The community is also pulling together, especially in supporting the Fire services, and helping out where they can.
Although many of the fires in the area are believed to currently be under control, conditions are not looking to improve however over the coming week. The Rural Fire Service had said that today was going to cause potential flare ups, with increasingly strong winds and high temperatures.
Facing such a catastrophe, Gladys Berejiklian, declared on the 11th of November, a state of emergency, the first since October 2013. Hundreds of schools have been closed on and off for the past few weeks and the army has been brought into some areas to provide support for the mobilised firemen.
It is not only a question of short term solutions however. At the centre of the political debate on the bush fires, is the issue of Climate Change. The extremely hot and dry conditions that areas of New South Wales and Queensland have been experiencing have ultimately been conducive to their spread. If these conditions are to persist over the next few years, bushfires like those that we are experiencing now, are unfortunately going to become the norm.
Despite this, while speaking about climate change in the parliament of NSW, many politicians have argued that our attention should be elsewhere, focusing on the present danger, the amount of houses burnt and lives lost. Although of pivotal importance, long term solutions need to be found, otherwise this state of emergency will become far more of a regular occurrence.