We need help. I don’t even know what to ask for, but my country is on fire (Australia bushfires: PM’s climate stance criticised as thousands flee blazes, 1 January). In 2018, my home was threatened in the Tathra District fire. Sixty-nine other homes were lost. It woke me from my complacency and I began to speak up about the urgency of action to reduce greenhouse emissions. I spoke at conferences, workshops and protests. I told the story of our fire, what it felt like to stand and watch a red monster come for your home and everything in it. I showed terrifying video footage. The column of smoke, the panic and confusion, the sound as the fire roared and raged. I spoke to politicians too.
Nothing changed. I was told to be quiet. Now I sit helpless at my father’s house in Melbourne, in the suburbs, with fires nearby. My partner is at our forest home, 700km away. There are massive fires to the north and west of him. Fires that have already taken hundreds of homes and too many lives. He’s watching and waiting, pumps primed, hoses unrolled. The smoke has turned day into night.
Read the story from The Guardian by Jo Dodds - “Australian bushfires are a warning to the world,”
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