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As Garry Morgan arrived home on the end of the week, his rural mid-north coast property was encircled by a massive cloud of smoke. Within twenty-four hours later, two houses on his street were consumed, and the adjacent bushland would be reduced to charred remnants.

A Town Grappling with Loss

The community of Bulahdelah, around 235km north of Sydney, has become at the centre of a tragedy after a veteran firefighter lost his life on Sunday evening when he was hit by a falling tree. This represents a “foreboding start” to the wildfire period.

Four properties have been destroyed in the wider Bulahdelah area, including two on Emu Creek Road, where Morgan lives, one on the Pacific Highway and one south of the township.

“No words can express it,” he said. “The dogs didn’t leave my side, the fear was palpable.”

Landscapes of Loss and Fortitude

Bulahdelah is a popular stopover on the Pacific Highway for travelers journeying up the coastal region to beach areas such as Seal Rocks, Forster and Port Macquarie.

On Monday afternoon, the highway south of town was covered by thick, orange smoke. Water-bombing helicopters circled above, aiding firefighters on the ground who were attempting to quash a fire that had consumed 4,000 hectares since Friday.

Heavy vehicles reduced speed for traffic cones and warning signs, the scorched trees and ash-covered ground on each side of the highway proof of how far the fire had swept through the adjacent Myall Lakes national park. It was still at a 'watch and act' alert level on Monday evening.

A Hub of Emergency Response

In Bulahdelah, though, it would appear as another ordinary day if not for the helicopters circling overhead and smell of smoke lingering in the air.

A refuelling station for aircraft has been established at the town’s showground, converting it into a central point for around 300 firefighters and volunteers who have travelled from across the state to help.

On Monday afternoon, water bottles were being offloaded from trucks and sweets were being packed into zip lock bags. One firefighter noted that they needed a water bottle every 20 minutes when on the active fire ground.

Personal Accounts from the Fireground

Billows of smoke were continuing to emit from spots of embers on Emu Creek Road, a meandering country road that follows a creek bed south of the township where two houses were lost.

On a boundary post outside a destroyed home, a scorched stuffed toy remained pinned to the log, still wearing a Christmas hat.

Down the road, Morgan was on his veranda with his two dogs, a little patch of grass surrounding his house the only remaining sign of how the landscape used to look. Miraculously, his property was saved, despite his neighbor's home burning to the ground.

He remembered receiving a call from a friend at lunchtime on Saturday, warning him “you have roughly 30 minutes and then a fire’s going to hit”. His prediction was accurate.

“We hosed down the property and shed down, wet the perimeter,” he said, and then his reaction turned to “alarm”. “I thought, ‘what the hell have I got myself into’,” he said. “I decided to stay.”

Thankfully, firefighters surrounded the house, and managed to save it. The bushfire moved through in about half an hour, sounding like “a roaring inferno”.

An Environment Altered

Morgan, who has resided at the same house for around 30 years, has never seen the land this parched.

“We used to get rain every week,” he said. “Fires of this magnitude are unprecedented. But you’ve got to take the good with the bad.”

On the same street, Jeff Curley was looking after his friend’s property which had also mostly been spared Saturday’s blaze, other than a broken headlight on a car and a container of wood stored for winter that had been reduced to ashes.

“I am very familiar with this area,” he said. “A few years ago a fire almost approached a nearby ridge and that was pretty scary then, but the wind changed.

“The conditions are far more arid now. It came from everywhere, and the firefighters pretty much saved it [the property].”

This experience wasn’t new for Curley, who nearly lost his home in Wattle Grove when fires came through in 2019.

“You hear reports say, ‘I can’t believe how fast it came’,” he said. “It seems distant, and suddenly it's upon you. I know what it’s like. I told my friend to evacuate immediately, and he did.”

Fire Service Update and Continuing Danger

Kirsty Channon, spokesperson for the NSW Rural Fire Service, said crews from various services had come from “right up and down the coast” to assist in the firefighting operation and had done an “incredible work” protecting houses from being destroyed.

She said all agencies had “united” after the tragic loss of one of their own.

“The firefighting community is one big family,” she said. “The threat persists.

“We’ve seen the Pacific Highway closing and reopening a few times, the fire spot across the road. It remains uncontained, it will continue to grow.”

Channon said work in the immediate future would center on the tiny township of Nerong, which was anticipated to be impacted by the Pacific Highway blaze on Monday evening. Residents had been urged to evacuate if unprepared, and prepare a bushfire survival plan.

“Small blazes are popping up from lightning strikes a few days ago,” she said.

“The forecast is the mid-thirties with shifting winds, and that has been difficult - wind swirls in the area.”