A day they will NEVER forget

On February 16, 1983, fires fanned by winds up to 110 km/h caused widespread destruction across South Australia and Victoria. There were 28 deaths in South Australia - 14 in the Hills and another 14 in the South East and 47 in Victoria. Three CFS volunteers, Andrew Lemke from Lucindale, Peter Matthies from Summertown and Brian Nosworthy from Callendale lost their lives, along with 13 CFA (Country Fire Authority) volunteer firefighters. The fires were the deadliest bushfires in Australian history until the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009.

The first fire was reported at 11.30am at McLaren Flat, south of Adelaide. Within hours, multiple reports of breaking fires quickly began. The total land area burnt was approximately 2,080 km² (513,979 acres, or 208,000 hectares) in South Australia and 2,100 km² (518,921 acres, or 210,000 hectares) in Victoria. More than 300 homes were lost along with a hotel, a service station and 13 historic buildings.

The community of Tarpeena will mark the 40th anniversary of the Ash Wednesday fires with a community event this weekend and Lifestyle1 spoke to two community members - their memories paint a deeply personal picture and for both ladies, re-telling what happened on February 16, 1983, made simple by the fact, those memories are still so vivid - even four decades on.

Joanne Vine (Memories of a 16 year old)

“I spent the day at school and I remember being told off for gazing out the window. In defence of the teacher I was always getting into trouble for doing that but on that day I noticed the light looked weird.

“We caught the bus to go home although what was interesting was there was definitely some confusion. The buses were supposed to have stopped and many of our parents were under the impression we were being held at school.

“Our bus driver lived in Tarpeena and he was really keen to get home to his wife who had come from hospital that day with their newborn baby.

“All I remember is we started heading home in sunlight and the sky just kept getting darker and darker and that was by the time we reached the airport.

“By the time we got to Tarpeena, there was smoke everywhere and the street lights were on and anyone driving had their car lights on - it was like night had fallen – it was pretty scary.

“As one of the older ones on the bus I remember feeling like I really had to keep it together and keep the younger ones calm. I really felt like crying but I thought it was important to stay strong.

“Despite everything going on, we got off the bus and walked home just like we normally would so I walked with my best friend to her house, which is what I always did, and by the time we got to her place there were embers flying around us. It was so weird to be doing what we would normally do yet we felt like there was chaos all around. Her parent were definitely in a bit of a panic.

“I then walked what was basically another 50 metres to my house and met my mother coming out of our driveway with the car. If I had been another five minutes she would have driven off and I wouldn’t have known what to do.

“By this stage there was snoke everywhere and embers flying and the wind was blowing hard.

“We started driving to the oval. Mum only had time to grab the dog and the cat and a few things and we just got to the oval and sat there thinking we would be safe.

“We didn’t know where my older brother was and then the next

“...we got off the bus and walked home just like we normally would so I walked with my best friend to her house, which is what I always did, and by the time we got to her place there were embers flying around us...”

Joanne Vine

thing we knew, the fire hit the oval and we were trying to move away from the flames.

“The fire came at the oval a few times and from a few different directions and with all the vehicles and trailers and things on the oval it was hard to move around.

“We were sitting in the car, no air conditioning, and it was so hot but we couldn’t open the windows the get air in as there was so much smoke and fire balls kept rolling past.

“My dad was working at SAPFOR and we didn’t know whether he was safe – he was in the end, he was coordinating the fire units.

“It did pass over eventually and it was almost cold and I think most of us had the same thought –‘what do we do now?’ There was still smoke everywhere.

“We went into the footy clubrooms and were trying to ring our house and it just cut off. Eventually we found out why – my father arrived and told us we had lost everything.

“My brother turned up not long after that and to be honest we were just glad we were all safe, the dog and cat were safe and even our chickens had survived in their chook house. We didn’t lose any family members and didn’t lose any pets and I think given everything else we lost that was really important to have that to hold onto.

“My biggest memory after the fire had gone through was just how kind everyone was – the whole world was so good to us afterwards.

“The shop was giving out free food and someone got us a house to go to which was amazing for a family with five children that we got to go straight to a house. We were one of 21 houses lost in Tarpeena. There was no rhyme or reason to which houses got burnt and which survived.

“We thought our house should have been safe as it was relatively new and there were other people who couldn’t believe their homes didn’t burn down – that was just the nature of it.

“I remember a teacher friend of our family from the Tarpeena Primary School gave me a whole wardrobe of clothes and I am still wearing one of those tops today – every time I wear it I think of her and how kind she was. All I had at the time was my school uniform.

CONT. OPP. PAGE

“...I remember a teacher friend of our family from the Tarpeena Primary School gave me a whole wardrobe of clothes and I am still wearing one of those tops today –every time I wear it I think of her and how kind she was..”

Joanne Vine

“When you just get 30 minutes to get out, you really don’t know what to take. I was actually watching a TV program the other day that looked at that and watched how people reacted and what grabbed. It was interesting to watch in view of what I had experienced.

“I was driven to school the next day – some people thought I had died so I went to show them I was alive and well. Basically once the fire had gone through, the next day we just got our act together and got on with it.

“Mum and dad couldn’t get a loan but we were able to get one of the houses Alan Bond donated to Tarpeena. It was during a time he wasn’t that popular but we were so grateful because there was no way we could finance another mortgage – after the insurance paid out, that covered

Deb Kuhl (Memories of a 23 year old SAPFOR employee)

“I was on reception and I was running the phones – and we’re talking the old style plug switchboard – and I got back from lunch as things were starting to get serious and they asked me to stay. From that point on things started to move very quickly.

“It was back when SAPFOR had a forestry division and it was a hive of activity trying to get the crews out when we couldn’t see anything.

“And there wasn’t just work to worry about – my grandparents lived across the road from work and my grandma was in hospital so I wasn’t sure what was going on with grandpa. At least I knew mum and dad and my sister were safe as they were in Beachport.

“All I knew was I needed to stay and run the phones and in a way I was too busy to have time to worry about what was

Remembering

Ash Wednesday bushfires at Tarpeena

the mortgage but there was nothing left over to start again. We will be forever grateful for that help.

“We were lucky to be able to stay in the house and you wouldn’t believe that the first winter we were there I thought I could smell smoke and I honestly thought I was going crazy and one day I was home studying and the smell of smoke was really bad and eventually we found out the people in the house before us had plugged gaps in the chimney with newspaper and they had started smouldering – the house would have burned down if I hadn’t noticed.

“It was such a huge year. I was also doing my matriculation (Year 12). I guess I was lucky my schoolbooks didn’t burn so again we just got on with it. My mum worked at the Tarpeena Primary School and that didn’t burn down so she was back at work straight away as well – life went on.” going on. I did get someone to take my car out.

“There was plenty going on, onsite, as well with fires starting in the timber packs. And we had people stuck between towns and so may amazing things happening, I remember there was one man who was on his motorbike and because of the lack of visibility came off and broke his leg and he was stuck on the road and he got lucky an elderly couple noticed him and picked him up and got him to safety.

“The school had dropped a young autistic girl off to me at SAPFOR as well because they knew I knew the family and I was trying to keep her entertained as well.

“I remember how frantic it was moving the timber packs that were burning – that all had to be done or the mill could’ve burned down.

“In a way the time went quickly as I just kept answering the phones until 11.30pm that night. I honestly didn’t know where the time went.

“The only time I remember feeling scared and stopping to think about what was happening was when one of the foresters came in and said ‘the fire is all around us’ – those were his exact words, I will never forget them and that was the only time I stopped and thought ‘oh my god’. But pretty quickly it was just a matter of getting back to what we were doing. I figured there wasn’t much I could do about the fire and if we needed to leave I assumed we would get out on a fire truck.

“I do remember people from work coming in and they were quite distressed and in shock and they had lost their homes.

“My brother came and picked me up from work and my parents kept ringing to check what was going on but my grandparents house was lost in the fire. My mum had horses and amazingly they survived – all we had to do there was fix the fences. Amazingly my grandfather did get out and he saved quite a few of their things – he put them on the front lawn and my cousins were going past and found him in the front yard and he didn’t really know where he was and got him out of there. The house burned but the belongings on the lawn survived.

“I remember Bruce Case took on the job of organising the houses that needed to be removed. I do remember the cleaning up. My other grandparents also lived there and lost the back of their shed.

“At the time of the fire I was so busy I don’t really have strong memories of the fire itself but I remember all the stories of what had happened to other people that you heard over the next few days.

“I do remember my auntie who lived on the Yorke

Peninsula hearing on ABC radio about what was going on in Tarpeena and she was trying to get hold of my parents and her call came through my switchboard so it was good to be able to let her know what was going on with our family and put her mind at rest.

“I remember Shirley Little doing so much – the whole community was helping everyone out – she had the shop and post office and she was giving out as much food as she could.

“The worst part for me was going to Mount Gambier to visit friends and on your way back you would get to the outskirts of Tarpeena and it was the smell, it was that same burning smell and it hung around for weeks and weeks – it made you feel sick.

“ I do remember the local MP Harold Allison coming to visit the office at work in the first hour or two after the fire went through.”

For many who lived through the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires, the memories are still vivid and four decades on, a community commemoration has been set down for Saturday, February 18. Open to everyone, the commemoration will start at 2pm with Cr Karen Turnbull officially opening the event, which will see wreaths laid and stories shared both at the community ceremony at the Tarpeena Hall before a free barbeque at the Tarpeeena Football Club. Luke Bald will be recording the stories and taking photos tro archive the event for future generations.

1) Atmospheric pressure unit

2) Dairy section purchases

3) Make a certain pie filling

4) Oprah had a famous one

5) Expressed oneself

6) African plain 7) Dry as a bone

8) Pinocchio, at times 9) Sacred objects 10) Molecule cores 11) Beloved animal 12) Beehive State college athlete 13) Crib sheet user 21) Blue blood, informally 22) Expenditures 25) Fills the hold, e.g. 26) Half of the forearm bones

27) Devious maneuvers 29) Jerry or Jerry Lee 30) Does it wrong 32) Parkinson’s drug 33) Willy and Shamu, for two

“The first___ the deepest”

Memory trace

Anchor cable hole

Call again

Eccentric former basketball star

Council of___ ( I 6th-century assembly)

Hindu concept

Divas’ offerings 52) Native-born Israeli

Cutting the mustard

Not an act 56) Smirk’s cousin

Age-provers

Carpet quality

Change hair color, e.g.