Kangaroo Island’s Margi Prideaux shares her story of recovery as the region keeps battling its fire scars, two years on
Margi and Geoff Prideaux lost their home in the Kangaroo Island inferno two years ago – but their vineyard has provided a source of hope for the couple and the wildlife they’ve helped protect.
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Immediately after the Kangaroo Island fires, Margi and Geoff Prideaux let the rosellas loose on their grapes to make sure the birds still had something to eat.
But this year, the six-year-old nebbiolo vines provided a vital lift for the couple, who lost their Gosse home in the blaze.
The vines brought the couple excitement and a sense of victory amid the island’s long, drawn-out rebuild process.
Despite about a third of the vines being burnt in the blaze, and another third heat damaged, the couple’s first vintage this year was “fantastic”.
“It was laughably small, but it was a real sense of victory,” Dr Margi Prideaux said.
“We’ve had other victories as well and they don’t have anything to do with houses,” she said, in reference to the couple’s move into their rebuilt home this year.
While grateful for all the help they received along the way to their move-in date, it hasn’t been as satisfying as Dr Prideaux had hoped.
The move has also brought a renewed sense of all they have lost.
“You subconsciously think of the process of unpacking boxes and putting that vase on the mantelpiece, and then you realise there isn’t that vase … and it’s only then that you start to mourn the loss of those tangible connections to moments in your life that are precious,” she said.
It’s taken time for the pair to come to terms with the fact that moving into the home is the first step in a journey – not the end of one.
“Geoff talks about how you need time to make scratches and dents,” Dr Prideaux says.
Following the fires, islanders’ ability to get back on their feet was hampered by Covid-19.
“It’s like Covid arrived and the fires were forgotten,” she said, adding tourism businesses already smashed by bushfires should have received extra support to battle through the pandemic.
Dr Prideaux is a writer and the couple also run publishing house Stormbird Press.
In the year after the fire ravaged their property on January 3, 2020, the business and its books took out three awards. Another post-fire victory is also just around the corner – the 2022 release of Dr Prideaux’s book, Fire – A Message from the Edge of Climate Catastrophe.
It’s a work that speaks to her frustration about a lack of action on climate change.
“I feel like governments collectively are just putting their blinkers on,” she said.
“They want to call this an isolated event and I think that’s foolishness at the highest level. All of the data says these events are increasing in frequency and ferocity.”
For islanders, the mental health scars left by the blazes are significant, and Dr Prideaux gives thanks to the strong support they have received to help overcome them.
“I have nothing but praise for the mental health professionals that have been here keeping us alive, because, quite literally, that’s what they’ve been doing and I think they’re angels,” she says.
“That we haven’t lost more people is frankly a miracle.”
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TWO YEARS ON, JUST ONE THIRD OF KI HOMES REBUILT
About 30 of the nearly 90 homes destroyed by the Kangaroo Island bushfires have been rebuilt, the local council says, as the region marks two years since the inferno.
Minderoo Foundation Fire and Flood Resilience initiative chief executive Adrian Turner said the organisation helped 47 families on Kangaroo Island by providing temporary accommodation – and about 30 of its “pods†were still in use across the region.
A mayor’s fund, established to support those affected by the fires, distributed almost $6m to those in need.
On January 3, 2020, fire roared through Flinders Chase National Park; also devastating the adjoining Ravine des Casoars Wilderness Protection area and Kelly Hill Conservation Park. Almost 90 homes were destroyed in the blazes that raged for weeks, ripping through almost half of the island.
Bush pilot Dick Lang and his son Clayton died in the fires, which burned through 122,000ha and killed 60,000 stock animals.
Kangaroo Island Council’s community development director Pat Austin said about 30 of the destroyed homes had been rebuilt. “A lot of people are not rebuilding or might be doing it later on,†she said.
Council chief executive Greg Georgopoulos said the island’s fortunes were now being boosted by high commodity prices, but tourism businesses were still reporting mixed fortunes.
“The ones that have managed to diversify their tourist offerings are doing OK catering for the local travellers,†he said.
Kangaroo Island Tourism Alliance chairman Pierre Gregor said while some businesses had elected not to rebuild, others were still in the planning stages or upgrading their offerings to take advantage of a push for more remote wellness experiences. However, he said tourism companies were facing another tough time, as travellers lacked confidence to travel due to Covid.
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