Forget-me-not postcard from the embers

Communities ravaged by this summer’s bushfires are still recovering from the blazes that ­ignored borders and merged towns in suffering.

Alice Ansara and her daughters Esther, 2, and Mavis, 4, near her home in Moruya, NSW. Picture: Sean Davey.

As Australia worries about COVID-19 and isolates states and territories, communities ravaged by this summer’s bushfires are still recovering from the blazes that ­ignored borders and merged towns in suffering.

The podcast From the Embers­ — produced by residents of areas affected by the bushfires — is a step in healing and a cry not to be forgotten as recovery works slow.

At Moruya, on the NSW south coast, Alice Ansara was evacuated three times during the fire season, forced to make the “heartbreaking” decision on whether her family­ could siphon out petrol to share with others and reach safety via congested roads out of town.

“It was an imminent threat there every day for six weeks,” said Ms Ansara, an actress and community radio broadcaster. “When the fire actually came through, it was a relief — it was something tangible.”

She said her family had been waiting for weeks for the fire to come, and kept evacuating and returning­.

The family home somehow managed to fit 22 extra people for three days over the new year with the power cut. “Very quickly we could see that this was going to be catastrophic,” Ms Ansara said.

The family had invited two friends but then others turned up. friends of friends of friends who had been camping nearby.

As favourable winds turned the fires away from Moruya, the group experienced mixed emotions, Ms Ansara said. “There was relief our town wasn’t gone but knowledge that the exact same wind meant another town was going (in harm’s way),” she said.

From the Embers was prod­uced by the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia with financial support from the Paul Ramsay Foundation and the Judith Neilson Institute for Journ­alism and Ideas.

The nine-part series tells the stories of survival and heroism in the face of great danger.

CBAA chief executive Jon Bisse­t said COVID-19 was the second disaster in months for these communities and was delay­ing a much-needed recovery. “While we all need to pull together­ in these difficult circumstances, some people have been knocked down just as they were getting up,” he said.

“When this is over, we must not forget what happened this summer.”

“I don’t know what will help,” Ms Ansara said. “The main thing is about telling authentic stories from within the communities.”

The podcast is available online via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, TuneIn and iHeart Radio.