When Garry Morgan arrived home on Friday afternoon, his rural mid-north coast property was surrounded by a “big plume of smoke”. Less than twenty-four hours later, two houses on his street would be lost, and its surrounding forest would be reduced to blackened skeletal remains.
Morgan’s township of Bulahdelah, around 235km north of Sydney, has become at the centre of a tragedy after a veteran firefighter died on Sunday evening when he was struck by a falling tree, marking a “foreboding start” to the bushfire season.
Four properties have been lost in the broader Bulahdelah area, including two on Emu Creek Road, where Morgan lives, one on the Pacific Highway and one south of the township.
Bulahdelah is a popular stopover on the Pacific Highway for holidaymakers on their way up the mid-north coast to beach areas such as Seal Rocks, Forster and Port Macquarie.
On Monday afternoon, the highway south of town was blanketed in thick, orange smoke. Water-bombing helicopters hovered overhead, assisting firefighters on the ground who were attempting to quash a blaze that had burnt 4,000 hectares since Friday.
Passing trucks slowed to observe traffic cones and reduce-speed signs, the blackened gum trees and charred grass on each side of the highway evidence of how far the fire had burnt through the adjacent Myall Lakes national park. It remained at a watch and act level on Monday evneing.
In Bulahdelah, though, it would seem like another ordinary day if not for the helicopters circling overhead and smell of smoke lingering in the air.
A refuelling station for aircraft has been set up at the town’s showground, transforming it into a hub for around 300 firefighters and volunteers who have travelled from across the state to help.
On Monday afternoon, cartons of water were being unloaded from trucks and lollies were being packaged into zip lock bags. One firefighter estimated that they needed a bottle of water every 20 minutes when they were on the frontline.
Billows of smoke were continuing to emit from spots of embers on Emu Creek Road, a winding rural street that hugs a creek bed south of the township where two houses were lost.
On a fence post outside a burnt property, a charred teddy bear remained pinned to the log, complete with a Christmas hat.
Down the road, Morgan sat on his porch with his two dogs, a little patch of grass surrounding his house the only remaining sign of how the landscape used to look. Miraculously, his property was saved, despite his neighbour’s burning to the ground.
He recalled receiving a call from a friend at lunchtime on Saturday, telling him “you’ve got about half an hour and then a fire’s going to hit”. Hit estimate was spot on.
“We sprayed the house and shed down, sprayed the fence line,” he said, and then his reaction turned to “panic”. “I thought, ‘what the hell have I got myself into’,” he said. “But I wasn’t leaving.”
Fortunately, firefighters surrounded the house, and managed to save it. The bushfire passed over in about half an hour, sounding like “a roaring flame”.
“No words can express it,” he said. “The dogs didn’t leave my side, it was frightening.”
Morgan, who has lived in the same house for around 30 years, has never seen the land so dry.
“We used to get rain every week,” he said. “We’ve never had fires like this. But you’ve got to take the good with the bad.”
On the same street, Jeff Curley was looking after his friend’s property which had also largely survived Saturday’s blaze, other than a broken headlight on a car and a barrel of firewood stored for winter that had burnt to ash.
“I’ve been here many, many times,” he said. “A few years ago a fire almost approached a nearby ridge and that was pretty scary then, but the wind changed.
“It’s just so much drier this time. It came from everywhere, and the firies pretty much saved it [the property].”
This experience wasn’t new for Curley, who nearly lost his home in Wattle Grove when fires came through in 2019.
“You see people on the news say, ‘I can’t believe how fast it came’,” he said. “You think it’s over there, and all of a sudden it’s on top of you. I know what it’s like. I told my friend to just get out of there, and he did.”
Kirsty Channon, public information officer for the NSW Rural Fire Service, said crews from multiple agencies had come from “right up and down the coast” to assist in the containment effort and had done an “amazing job” protecting houses from being destroyed.
She said all agencies had “pulled together” after the death of one of their own.
“The firefighting community is one big family,” she said. “But we’re definitely not out of the woods yet.
“We’ve seen the Pacific Highway open and close a few times, the fire jump backwards and forwards. It’s still not contained, it will continue to grow.”
Channon said efforts in the coming hours and days would focus on the tiny township of Nerong, which was expected to be hit by the Pacific Highway blaze on Monday evening. Residents had been urged to leave if not prepared, and have a fire plan.
“Little fires are popping up from lightning strikes a few days ago,” she said.
“Tomorrow’s weather is mid 30s with variable wind, and that’s been challenge – wind swirls in the area.”
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