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When a local resident arrived home on Friday afternoon, his home on the coastal fringe was enveloped in a dense smoke column. Within twenty-four hours later, a pair of homes on his street were consumed, and the surrounding forest would be reduced to blackened skeletal remains.

A Community at the Centre of Tragedy

The community of Bulahdelah, around 235km north of Sydney, has found itself at the heart of a devastating event after a long-serving firefighter lost his life on Sunday evening when he was hit by a falling tree. This marks a ominous beginning to the wildfire period.

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

“Words fail to capture it,” he said. “The dogs didn’t leave my side, it was terrifying.”

Landscapes of Loss and Fortitude

Bulahdelah is a frequent rest stop on the Pacific Highway for holidaymakers on their way 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 covered by dense, ochre-hazed smoke. Aircraft conducting water drops hovered overhead, aiding firefighters on the ground who were working to contain a blaze that had burnt 4,000 hectares since Friday.

Heavy vehicles slowed to observe road markers and reduce-speed signs, the blackened gum trees and charred grass on each side of the highway evidence of how far the fire had burnt through the adjacent Myall Lakes national park. It remained at a 'watch and act' alert level on Monday evening.

A Hub of Emergency Response

In Bulahdelah, though, it would seem like a typical 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, turning it into a hub for around 300 emergency personnel who have come from across the state to help.

On Monday afternoon, water bottles were being offloaded from trucks and lollies were being packaged into zip lock bags. One firefighter noted 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 glowing hotspots on Emu Creek Road, a winding rural street that hugs a creek bed south of the township where two houses were lost.

On a fence post outside a burnt property, a charred teddy bear remained pinned to the log, still wearing a Christmas hat.

Down the road, Morgan sat on his porch with his two dogs, a little patch of grass surrounding his house the sole remnant of how the landscape used to look. Miraculously, his property was spared, despite his neighbor's home burning to the ground.

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

“We sprayed the house and shed down, wet the perimeter,” he said, and then his reaction turned to “panic”. “I said to myself, ‘what have I gotten into’,” he said. “But I wasn’t leaving.”

Fortunately, firefighters surrounded the house, 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 resided at the same house for around 30 years, has never seen the land so dry.

“We used to get rain every week,” he said. “This intensity is new. 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 largely survived Saturday’s blaze, other than a damaged light on a car and a barrel of firewood stored for winter that had burnt to ash.

“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.

“It’s just so much drier this time. It came from everywhere, and the firefighters pretty much saved it [the property].”

This was not a novel situation for Curley, who came close to losing his home in Wattle Grove when fires swept through in 2019.

“You hear reports say, ‘I can’t believe how fast it came’,” he said. “It seems distant, and all of a sudden it surrounds you. I know what it’s like. 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 assist in the containment effort and had done an “outstanding job” protecting houses from being destroyed.

She said all agencies had “worked as one” after the death of one of their own.

“The firefighting community is a close-knit group,” she said. “But we’re definitely not out of the woods yet.

“There have been instances of the Pacific Highway open and close a few times, the fire jump backwards and forwards. It’s still not contained, 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 highway fire on Monday evening. Authorities advised locals to leave if not prepared, and prepare a bushfire survival plan.

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

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