Out of darkness comes renewed life

It’s been 10 months since the sky turned blood red over thousands of stranded holiday-makers seeking refuge on the town’s foreshore as gas bottles exploded from intense heat.

Mark and Cate Trellegas with daughter Jessica near their Mallacoota propert. Picture: Aaron Francis

After fire, floods and the coronavirus, the residents of the Victorian town Mallacoota would be forgiven for feeling like they’d lived through the apocalypse.

It’s been 10 months since the sky turned blood red over thousands of stranded holiday-makers seeking refuge on the town’s foreshore as gas bottles exploded from intense heat.

The ferocity of last summer’s bushfire season burnt through 24 million hectares, devouring towns, homes and livelihoods along the nation’s southeast coast.

Mallacoota resident Mark Trellegas said the pandemic had slowed down recovery efforts in the town, about 500km east of Melbourne, with the state economy haemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars under lockdown restrictions.

“It has slowed everything down unimaginably and it’s ­almost put us into the background,” he said.

When the fire tore through the town on New Year’s Eve, Mr Trellegas, with wife Cate and their three teenage daughters, sought refuge along the foreshore.

The sky went black before it blistered red, while on the foreshore the Trellegas family were wrongly told they’d lost their home. When the fire passed, they returned to find their home standing but the land behind the property annihilated by the blaze.

Just weeks later, heavy rains flooded the property.

The Trellegas after the bushfire. Picture: David Caird

Ms Trellegas and youngest daughter Jessica, then 12, became sick from inhaling the toxic smoke that lingered over the town, prompting the family to spend February in Melbourne.

Burnt trees line the Genoa-Mallacoota Road that twists into Mallacoota, while ferns, cat’s tails and tea tree saplings spring from the sandy ground.

The only paved road out of the one-pub town was closed for 39 days while a clean-up operation removed felled trees and debris.

Deputy chair of the Mallacoota and District Recovery Association Jenny Lloyd said the recovery of the town had become intrinsically linked to the coronavirus, with its economic health linked to the return of tourists.

“In many ways COVID’s been a bigger hit to our economy than the bushfires,” she said.

“It‘s a disaster itself so we’ve got one disaster following another.”

She said social distancing ­restrictions hampered community planning, with Zoom meetings and exchanges of written suggestions replacing town hall meetings and sausage sizzles.

“Social connections are so ­important in a town that’s traumatised,” she said. “That’s really been sad for our recovery process, having to do things back to front.”

Dozens of the 123 district residents who lost their homes are still waiting for housing, with some living in caravans while ­others have chosen to leave.

Near Bastion Point, where the town sought refuge, new homes have been built next to dead black tea trees.

Country Fire Authority firefighter Dennis McLeod, 70, has been fighting for more than 40 years and says he has never seen anything like the last fire, which ripped through trees along the coast and smoked birds dead from the sky.

“(They) landed on their backs, the smoke got them.” he said.

“It’s (smoke) affected a lot of the locals too … I think our lung capacity isn’t as good as what it used to be.”