Description
A Catastrophic Bushfire in Australia
February 2009 saw catastrophic bushfire in Australia that burnt through entire communities, taking 173 lives and injuring hundreds, while destroying thousands of houses and other buildings. Up to 400 fires destroyed 450,000 hectares of forest, native fauna and habitat, livestock and farmland. Devil In The Wind is a vivid and graphically experiential account of those fires and their immediate aftermath.
When the fires had been extinguished, the voices of people who had lived through the experience — victims, rescuers, and observers — were spoken and were heard.
the hearth of home
everything happened so fast
I heard a roar
that sounded like jet planes
it came up the valley before me
and it came up the valley
behind
the rain was red
and the hail that hit my roof
was a barrage
of hot embers
I was showered by fire
fallen from the sky
I dropped the hose
and pulled a jacket flap up
over my face
then the windows exploded
flames flew in
sparks danced and I thought
I might be a goner
this time
but I pushed my panic away
chimneys are strong
and chimneys are tall
chimneys seem to remain
when nothing else is left
so I crawled on my knees
through the black day and the sear
huddled in the hearth
where the fire usually lays
and I wept for my breath
while the beast burned my home
right to the ground around me
A Literary Experience of the Black Saturday Fires
Devil In the Wind is Frank Prem’s poetic anthology of the personal, and very human, accounts of those who themselves experienced and survived the catastrophic bushfire in Australia, known as Black Saturday. Poetry writing that interacts directly with readers emotions. Catastrophic fire in Australia laid bare in the words of the people who lived through them.
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