After the horrendous fires are extinguished the ripples will continue. Socials ripples of devastated families and ravaged town, loss of stock and wildlife, financial hardship and deep emotional scars.

Yesterday my sister evacuated from her remote home in the Snowy Mountains. Their property is home to endangered quoll (filmed by the BBC), as well as wombats, echidna and beautiful mountain birds. My heart aches for the dying wildlife, innocent victims of our lack of environmental care. The photos show the home track; on a normal day and earlier this week.

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Before leaving they nailed tin sheets over the wooden verandas, left water for the animals and nailed meat from the freezer onto the quoll trees. Further south my cousins and niece are fighting fires, and my daughter returns from holiday to toxic Canberra air. Amongst all this devastation there is another tiny loss, insignificant to anyone but me.

For several months I’ve been working on a novel. I’m two-thirds into a first draft with funding help from the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries. The setting of this story is a road journey through regions now devastated by fire; Gippsland, Eden, Batlow, the lower Snowies … Given the catastrophic fires, horror and sadness my current storyline now seems trivial. I will need to alter the setting or indeed the whole tone of my project. But first we need to get through Saturday. We’re en route to family in Albury. Let’s hope communities across Australia are safe during the next bout of extreme weather. Thank you to our brave firies.