🔗 Share this article

As Garry Morgan arrived home on Friday afternoon, his rural mid-north coast property was enveloped in a massive cloud of smoke. Less than twenty-four hours later, two dwellings on his street would be lost, and the surrounding forest was transformed into a scorched landscape.

A Community at the Centre of Tragedy

The community of Bulahdelah, approximately 235km north of Sydney, has become at the centre of a tragedy after a long-serving firefighter died on Sunday evening when he was struck by a falling tree. This signals a “foreboding start” to the bushfire season.

A total of four homes have been destroyed in the wider Bulahdelah area, comprising two on Emu Creek Road, the residence of Garry Morgan, one on the Pacific Highway and one south of the township.

“It's beyond description,” Morgan stated. “The dogs didn’t leave my side, it was frightening.”

Scenes of Destruction and Resilience

Bulahdelah is a common pause on the Pacific Highway for tourists journeying up the mid-north coast to beach areas such as Seal Rocks, Forster and Port Macquarie.

On Monday afternoon, the highway south of town was blanketed in dense, ochre-hazed smoke. Helicopters circled above, aiding ground crews who were battling a blaze that had scorched 4,000 hectares since Friday.

Passing trucks slowed to observe traffic cones and warning signs, the blackened gum trees and burnt grass on each side of the highway a stark reminder of how far the fire had burnt through the adjacent Myall Lakes national park. It remained at a watch and act level on Monday evening.

A Hub of Emergency Response

In Bulahdelah, though, it would seem like a typical day if not for the aircraft overhead and acrid odor lingering in the air.

A fuel depot for aircraft has been set up at the town’s showground, transforming it into a central point for around 300 emergency personnel 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 estimated that they needed a bottle of water every 20 minutes when on the frontline.

Personal Accounts from the Fireground

Billows of smoke were still rising from smoldering patches 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 charred teddy bear remained pinned to the log, complete with a Christmas hat.

Down the road, Morgan was on his veranda with his two dogs, a little patch of grass surrounding his house the sole remnant of how the area once appeared. 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 blaze will arrive”. His prediction was accurate.

“We hosed down the property and shed down, sprayed the fence line,” he said, and then his reaction turned to “alarm”. “I said to myself, ‘what the hell have I got myself into’,” he said. “But I wasn’t leaving.”

Fortunately, crews protected the home, and succeeded in defending it. The bushfire moved through in about half an hour, sounding like “a thunderous blaze”.

A Landscape Transformed

Morgan, who has lived in the same house for around 30 years, has not witnessed the land so dry.

“It once rained 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 caring for his friend’s property which had also mostly been spared Saturday’s blaze, except for a damaged light 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 reached a local ridge and that was quite frightening then, but the wind changed.

“The conditions are far more arid now. The fire approached from all directions, and the firefighters pretty much saved it [the property].”

This experience wasn’t new for Curley, who came close to losing his home in Wattle Grove when fires swept through in 2019.

“You see people on the news say, ‘I can’t believe how fast it came’,” he said. “It seems distant, and all of a sudden it’s on top of you. I understand the feeling. I told my friend to just get out, and he did.”

Official Response and Ongoing Threat

Kirsty Channon, spokesperson for the NSW Rural Fire Service, said crews from various services had come from “right up and down the coast” to help with the containment effort 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.

“Firefighters is a close-knit group,” she said. “However, the danger is not over.

“We’ve seen the Pacific Highway closing and reopening a few times, the fire spot across the road. It’s still not contained, it is expected to spread.”

Channon said efforts in the coming hours would focus on the tiny township of Nerong, which was expected to be hit by the highway fire on Monday evening. Authorities advised locals to evacuate if unprepared, and have a fire plan.

“Small blazes are starting from storm activity a few days ago,” she said.

“Tomorrow’s weather is the mid-thirties with shifting winds, and that has been difficult - wind swirls in the area.”