In the line of fire: the summer that changed us

This Australia Day weekend will not be like any other. Not for those who lost loved ones in the bushfires that swept the country over summer. Not for those who saw their homes and livelihoods go up in flames. Not for the firefighters and paramedics, nurses and doctors, volunteers and fundraisers, who worked tirelessly – and are still working tirelessly – to save and protect, help and heal, most importantly the people, properties and wildlife that have been in the line of fire but also our broken national psyche.

For this summer has changed us. What it means is yet to be fully calibrated, let alone understood, but there’s a collective sense of something really fundamental having shifted. And while the stories out of the bushfires have been heartbreaking, they’ve also been affirming: to see what people
are capable of in support of their fellow humans and animals has been inspiring.

Firefighters risking their lives time and time again, because that’s just what they do; koalas sitting in fire trucks and drinking from cyclists’ water bottles; people knitting, baking, opening their homes to those who need it; school children donating all their pocket money; and people across a vast array of communities, demographics and sectors launching campaigns that, thanks to social media, have garnered attention and funds from around the globe. And that was before we heard of wombats sharing their burrows with other animals.

Our small part in the media has been to document this most extraordinary of summers, and to help in the process of explaining and understanding it. To that end, we’ve done something unusual: Good Weekend has wrapped its Australia Day weekend issue, with a 16-page bushfires photographic special. It’s our way of recognising all that has happened to our fellow Australians, and all that has been done and continues to be done by the incredible humans leading the fight and recovery. A pictorial way of saying we see your pain, and stand with you. And we thank you.

- Katrina Strickland, Good Weekend Editor

Photo: Alex Ellinghausen.Credit:

An exhausted RFS firefighter in Bombay, NSW, in late November, three days after lightning ignited the North Black Range fire east of Canberra.

Photo: Eddie Jim.Credit:

This echidna was on the road in a burnt-out area near Maragle state forest, west of Kosciuszko National Park, in January when it was spotted by The Age journalist Michael Bachelard and photographer Eddie Jim. Using a fire blanket, they picked it up and moved it to a nearby creek.

Photo: Kate Geraghty.Credit:

Damian Campbell-Davys with Tinny Arse – the young koala he rescued from a bushfire zone near Canberra – inside his water tanker, which was resupplying fire trucks. After intensive care at an animal rescue centre, Tinny Arse recovered.

Photo: Nick Moir.Credit:

A fire truck escaping an inferno whipped up by sudden 80km/h winds in Orangeville, near Campbelltown in Sydney’s far south-west, in December.

Photo: Alex Ellinghausen.Credit:

The view at 4.35pm in Adaminaby, NSW, on January 4.

Photo: Justin McManus.Credit:

Out-of-control fires visible across Bottom Lake from the Foreshore Caravan Park, Mallacoota, Victoria, in January. The town lost an estimated 100 houses around New Year’s Eve.

Photo: Nick Moir.Credit:

Local Geoff Gardner watches as the Green Wattle Creek fire approaches Orangeville, NSW, on 5 December. 

Photo: Eddie Jim.Credit:

The alpine region across the NSW-Victoria border was hit by vast bushfires, such as here near Tooma, NSW, in January.

Photo: Justin McManus.Credit:

Birds killed by the fires washed up “as far as you could see” on Victoria’s Tip Beach in January.

Photo: Nick Moir.Credit:

“We could only save ourselves as the buildings burnt,” says Nick Moir, who documented the destruction in December in Bilpin, NSW, near where he grew up.

Photo: Alex Ellinghausen.Credit:

An Orangeville resident defends his property as a bushfire approaches in December.

Photo: Wolter Peeters.Credit:

A wombat on Tallowa Dam Road in Kangaroo Valley, NSW, in early January, after the Currowan fire ripped through the region.

Photo: Wolter Peeters.Credit:

An eastern grey kangaroo licks burnt paws after escaping from the Liberation Trail fire, visible at the rear, near Nana Glen, NSW, in November.

Photo: Alex Ellinghausen.Credit:

ACT firefighters bringing the North Black Range fire near Braidwood, NSW, under control in early December. It flared up again just days later.

Photo: Kiran Ridley.Credit:

Volunteer firefighter Anika Craney at the ruins of her home near Cobargo, NSW, in January, destroyed by the Badja Forest Road fire, which killed a father and son.

Photo: Justin McManus.Credit:

Kangaroos flee a grass fire in Plenty Gorge Park, Mill Park, in Melbourne’s north in December.

Photo: James Brickwood.Credit:

At Tomakin on the NSW South Coast after the region’s devastating New Year’s Eve fires.

Photo: James Brickwood. Credit:

At Mogo on the NSW South Coast after the region’s devastating New Year’s Eve fires.

Photo: Kate Geraghty.Credit:

RFS firefighters at the Green Wattle Creek fire near Tahmoor, NSW, in December.

Photo: Dean Sewell.Credit:

Burning properties in Rainbow Flat, NSW, after the Hillville fire broke containment lines in November.

Photo: Eddie Jim. Credit:

A building in Cudgewa, Victoria, lies in ruins after fires swept through the Upper Murray town in January.

Photo: Eddie Jim.Credit:

Mark Brooks and daughter Kylee hold on hard to each other outside the remains of their property at Upper Thowgla Valley near Corryong, Victoria, in January.

Photo: Justin McManus.Credit:

Stranded under a blood-red sky in Mallacoota, Victoria, in January, are Robert and Karen Allen with their dog Panther.

Photo: Justin McManus. Credit:

Kia and Deniz Kirschbaum with kids Samira, Kian and Nuri as daylight becomes a red glow in Mallacoota, Victoria, in January.

Photo: Nick Moir.Credit:

An uneasy New Year’s Eve for tourists at Currarong on NSW’s South Coast, as plumes from the northern flank of the Currowan fire smear the horizon. 

Photo: Dean Sewell.Credit:

Firefighters protect property north of Forster, on the NSW North Coast, in November.

Photo: Justin McManus.Credit:

The army evacuates people stranded in the far eastern Victorian town of Mallacoota to HMAS Choules in early January.

Photo: Justin McManus.Credit:

Waiting to be evacuated by the army in the far eastern Victorian town of Mallacoota to HMAS Choules in early January.

Photo: Justin McManus.Credit:

Mallacoota evacuees. HMAS Choules conducted two evacuation voyages from the far eastern Victorian town of Mallacoota in early January.

Photo: Wolter Peeters.Credit:

At Yarravel, NSW. The picture was one of three projected onto the Sydney Opera House sails in January.

Photography by Nick Moir, Wolter Peeters, James Brickwood, Kate Geraghty, Eddie Jim, Alex Ellinghausen, Justin McManus, Dean Sewell and Kiran Ridley. This photographic edit is by Mags King.

To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times.