From the Mercury Editor’s desk: The fires that shook Mackay
As bushfires raged across the country, we reflected on the inferno that tore through our region in 2018.
Opinion
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AS FIRES have raged across the country, our community has been remembering the 2018 fires that shook this region.
Exactly 12 months ago yesterday, Pioneer Valley firefighters were facing an unprecedented situation. The fire, which had started at Mt Pinnacle two weeks earlier, had reached catastrophic proportions.
But it was just one of many fires that devastated the region.
Over the past month, Daily Mercury journalist Zizi Averill has compiled the stories of volunteers, evacuations, fires, near misses and more from across eight fire fronts.
Stories like cattle producer Tania Plemenuk stumbling across the body of a cow that had tried to escape the fire in Bloomsbury.
Or Marian resident Anne-Marie Russel-Pace who said goodbye to her husband, David Pace, each day as he went out to battle fires.
For Eungella resident Marilynne Wright, it was a frightening moment when a fireball rolled over her car bonnet.
Jo Freegard was 14km away from her children when they were pushed into the last helicopter evacuating people from Eungella.
As she directed the waterbombing planes towards the Cathay Creek fire, she had no idea where her family was.
But the fires were not just west and north of Mackay.
In Sarina, residents were woken at midnight to be evacuated. Senior Sergeant Anthony Cowan talks about what it was like on the frontline.
"Within 10 minutes it went from contained to jumping over Sarina Coast Rd and towards the houses," he said.
It was 20 days of hell for the firefighters who took on the blazes.
Look through the photo galleries and an interactive timeline of the fires from start to finish.
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