Timber township’s bushfire wedding among the stirring symbols of recovery in new book Fighting Spirit

When bushfires smashed their town, this couple went through with their wedding despite the devastation. Now they’ve had more good news.

Celebrating love and hope in the face of devastation, Tiffany and Sean Duncan’s wedding was a symbolic first step towards recovery for many in the timber township of Tumbarumba, just five short weeks after the area was ravaged by the Black Summer bushfires.

Eighteen months on, the couple this week welcomed into the world their first child, Dahlia Joy.

“We are very lucky, even with the current state of the world, we squeezed in the biggest celebration of our lives between Covid and the fires,” says Tiffany. “Now we have this beautiful little gorgeous, healthy newborn who is like a blossoming flower.”

Hope amid devastation ... the wedding couple at the Bago State Forest, where Sean proposed to Tiffany and where they had initially planned to hold their ceremony. The Tumbarumba church survived the blaze and served as an alternate location. Picture: corinnaanddylan.com

Their wedding photos show the couple, plus family and friends from all over Australia and Sean’s native New Zealand, gathered with the community on the NSW-Vic border to toast the future – in stark contrast to the devastating recent past so evident around them.

In one image, they stand where Sean had proposed: a verdant forest become a cemetery of charred stumps.

The pictures feature in Fighting Spirit, a new book saluting the communities across Australia impacted by the deadly fires of 2019-2020.

“A blossoming flower” ... Tiffany and Sean’s newborn, Dahlia Joy Duncan. Her arrival is another milestone on the road to recovery for their family.

A photographic tribute, with a foreword by Prime Minister Scott Morrison and an introduction by award-winning writer Trent Dalton, Fighting Spirit captures the story of the disaster and charts the recovery process; saluting the bravery, compassion and sheer determination of those involved, from farmers and townsfolk to firefighters and volunteers.

It is a collaboration between News Corp Australia, HarperCollins and the Federal Government’s National Resilience and Recovery Agency. Five thousand copies will be donated to libraries and schools in bushfire-affected communities and all royalties will go to the bushfire charity BlazeAid.

“Fighting Spirit recounts extraordinary stories told through remarkable images and carefully crafted words,” said News Corp Australia’s community ambassador, Penny Fowler.

“The human spirit at its noble best” ... the cover of Fighting Spirit.

“The book demonstrates the human spirit at its noble best and humanity’s infinite capacity to generate hope from helplessness, forging community bonds stronger for having been built on kindness.”

Minister for Emergency Management and National Recovery and Resilience, Senator the Hon Bridget McKenzie, said Fighting Spirit is a legacy of the courage, resilience and community spirit of the people affected by the Black Summer bushfires, adding: “These communities have not been forgotten.”

The Duncans’ story is one of many included; and it strikes a chord, not just with survivors, but also with the millions who watched on in horror from relative safety that summer, unable to help as our country burned.

“We can see it coming over the hill” ... fire burns in Batlow, near Tumbarumba. Picture Rohan Kelly

Tiffany, herself a wedding celebrant, and sommelier Sean were not in the timber township where she grew up as two blazes converged on Tumbarumba on New Year’s Eve, 2019.

Having just gone to Noosa post-Christmas, during a period living between both places, they were left helpless, knowing family and friends were fleeing or in a fight for their lives – but in a communications black hole after mobile reception went dead.

“I got a call from mum and my sister and they told me ‘We can see it coming over the hill and we know it’s going to take the (phone) tower so you won’t be able to contact us soon’,” says Tiffany.

The aftermath ... thousands of homes, like this one near Tumbarumba, were lost in the Black Summer fires, along with 34 lives, as millions of hectares burned across Australia.

“I was obviously a mess. They were massively stressed. Mum’s usually calm but she started to lose it.”

Then as feared, the phones cut out and there was no news for hours, as the people of Tumbarumba battled the flames together – and evacuated together.

As the fires passed and the community came back to a landscape and businesses in ruins, the Duncans prepared to cancel their planned February wedding – but Tiffany’s mother had other ideas.

Community strength ... after the fires, Australians are still helping each other to rebuild. Many of their stories feature in Fighting Spirit.

“She was like ‘No, this is what Tumba needs. We need this to look forward to, to get us through,” says Tiffany.

The couple agreed, enthused at the opportunity to ship in visitors and inject thousands of dollars back into the local economy, holding the reception at a winery where all the vines had burned – then taking the same philosophy on a honeymoon trip through other fire-hit areas of Australia, ending up at South Australia’s Kangaroo Island.

In it together and looking to the future ... Tiffany and Sean Duncan with their bridal party on the outskirts of Tumbarumba. Picture: corinnaanddylan.com

For Tiffany, the sense of community emphasised in Fighting Spirit is the element that stands out from that time, in particular “knowing that my family were in the hands of the community, that all stuck together”.

And, cuddling little Dahlia at home in Noosa, she believes that very Australian spirit of community is a beacon for these times of Covid.

“Everyone is in it together and we’ll get through it together … even though we have to be in isolation.”

Fighting Spirit: A tribute to the bushfire-affected communities of Australia’s Black Summer will be published on September 15 and can be pre-ordered now.

Family and community ... Tiffany and Sean Duncan with their daughter Dahlia Joy.