Mid-North Coast firestorm the canvas in Karly Lane’s latest blockbuster

The Kian Road mega fire which terrorised a Mid-North Coast valley is the stage for a new novel which looks at how a community rallied in the worst of times.

Australian rural story-teller Karly Lane's latest novel 'Once Burnt, Twice Shy' traces the courage and challenge of a community threatened by bushfire. Photo: Chris Knight.

Top selling Australian writer Karly Lane has used the Black Spring fires that shredded her own valley on the Mid-North Coast as the backdrop for her latest novel.

A teller of Australian rural stories, ‘Once Burnt, Twice Shy’ is Lane’s 19th book, and perhaps her most daunting assignment given the superfire which tore through the Nambucca in 2019 remains a sensitive topic and fresh in the minds of many locals.

The Kian Road blaze destroyed more than 60 homes and near countless outbuildings, most on the western flank of the valley.

Lane, who lives on an 8-acre property near Macksville, used the first Covid lockdown to start her book.

“My focus wasn’t so much on the fire itself, but on the community. I was inspired by what happened,” she said.

“It was just amazing to see the Ex-Services (club) and all the other businesses rally, and the showground (which became a shelter for animals).”

Karly Lane with her beloved horses at her 8-acre property near Macksville on the Mid-North Coast. Photo: Chris Knight.

Lane’s little herd of brumbies were among those taken to sanctuary at the Macksville Showground, as fire edged toward two sides of her Congarinni property.

“I was more worried about my horses. At the time they (the brumbies) were relatively unhandled and weren’t used to being in stables (as they were at the showground),” she said.

With her animals safe - “I was so calm after that” - Lane, like many, packed her car with important documents and photo albums in the event she had to leave.

Her son was an ever present source of worry. He was working on a dairy farm at Taylor’s Arm - and doing what he could along with landholders and the NSW Rural Fire Service and other agencies to stall the Kian Road inferno.

“Complacency, everyone’s guilty of it, you just don’t expect it to happen,” Lane reflected.

“There was just so much smoke, and it was hard knowing how stretched everything was.”

While the firestorm is the beating canvas of her latest story, the novel follows the characters through the drama, principally, a “woman who comes back to town and she’s caught up in it with her family”, Lane said.

Writing professionally since 2010, the mum-of-four said the 2019-20 fires remained taboo for some.

“A lot of people are still very triggered by it,” she said.

“More so the fire side people (firefighters). They were great, they gave everything, but some are still traumatised, which is understandable.”

‘One Burnt, Twice Shy’ is published by Allen & Unwin, and Lane has already started penning a sequel, set in a time a few years after rain did what no fire agency could - extinguish the Kian Road mega fire.

“I want to explore how things have moved on, and in some cases where things haven’t moved on,” she said.