Flames like twisters, birds dropping from the sky: recalling Black Summer's terror

On December 31, 2019, fire fronts from the Currowan fire converged on Conjola Park from the north, south and west, destroying 89 homes and damaging many more.

Three people in the area lost their lives, while many were traumatised by their experiences.

Among the people who lost their homes on the day were Ken and Katrina Walsh, who soon established themselves as community leaders.

They saw the extent of the impact, and said the community was fortunate to not experience more severe losses.

"They were very lucky they didn't have to go and find 5000 body bags, because I worked for the coroner for years, and that could have very easily been the case," Mr Walsh said.

Ms Walsh became an unofficial spokesperson for Conjola Park and its residents impacted by the fires, raising concerns through the health system and addressing a range of inquiries.

Some of those concerns centred on the services so vital to communities, such as water supply and communications that failed because power went out and backup generators did not work.

"There was no communication," Mr Walsh added.

"The emergency services couldn't talk to each other - the police, us, the whole thing.

"In the 70s you had an AM radio and you could talk to Bourke, and yet you couldn't even talk to the person across the road so once communication was lost, it was terrible."

He questioned why the Ulladulla police station did not have a back-up generator, hampering their response to the emergency situation.

"Every single police officer who worked over that time should have got a medal," Mr Walsh said.

Among those most impacted by the experiences in Black Summer were those tasked with trying to extinguish or at least contain the giant walls of flame racing through the South Coast - often while their homes and the homes of loved ones were burning to the ground.

Some still struggle to deal with what they saw, heard and experienced during the fires.

Meanwhile, those who survived continue to deal with the simmering anger that exists just below the surface over the many things that went wrong - some of which have still not been rectified.

Topping the list of concerns was a back burn lit on the night of December 30, 2019, just west of Conjola Park and on the other side of the Princes Highway near Yatte Yattah, against the advice of local property owners.

Mr Walsh said he was "furious" when he heard the RFS managers had ordered the back burn, conducted by the RFS and National Parks and Wildlife Service.

"Why anyone would light a back burn the day before the hottest day of summer is beyond me," Mr Walsh said.

That back burn was not blacked out "because it was un-blackoutable", Mr Walsh said, raising questions about its impact on what unfolded at Conjola Park.

"We don't know if the fire would have crossed the road and headed east, had it not been assisted by a back burn," Ms Walsh added.

An inquest into the Currowan fire in May 2023 heard claims from residents that spot fires caused by the back burn destroyed properties.

While the Rural Fire Service officials said it would have crossed the Princes Highway even without the back burn, "It wouldn't have come as fast, it wouldn't have come as early, it possibly wouldn't have come with that intensity, and it might have given some people notice and notice to either get down to the lake or get the hell out if they could," Ms Walsh said.

The lack of notice also caused concern.

Mr Walsh said the Fires Near Me app had been "over the top" with alerts and updates for weeks leading up to New Year's Eve, but on the day there was nothing.

The first notification one person had was seeing the house next door on fire, Ms Walsh added.

Chris and Adam Webb are among those in Conjola Park still to rebuild after the home in which they raised their three children was destroyed.

Ms Webb said official communication on the day was "crap - we got no warning whatsoever".

In fact it was left to community members to contact each other, and Ms Webb said she was notified by a friend calling from nearby Pointer Mountain who had seen flames race down Myrtle Gully.

As she fled the village Ms Webb contacted others, warning them about what was coming.

At the same time "some of the elderly had to be dragged out of their houses" and taken to safety due to the lack of official warnings, Ms Webb said.

Mr Webb remained behind to try and protect his home and community, yet there was no water pressure and he and others could do little other than watch on as houses were destroyed and streets were decimated.

In one street alone 11 of the 15 houses were destroyed, with others damaged not only by fire, but also exploding gas bottles.

With no water "there was not much we could do," Mr Webb said.

The scene was both terrifying and awe-inspiring, he said, as the residents watched the flames behave "like a twister" as they jumped from one side of the road to the other, one house to another.

"The whole place went dark, and birds were dropping out of the sky," he said.

Unable to hold back the flames, Mr Webb and others headed to the nearby lake, as suggested by a resident who was a Rural Fire Service member.

Mr and Ms Walsh decided to leave their home the day before the fires hit, acting on the predictions of extreme weather and their observations of how dry everything was.

They had already been evacuated once, a couple of weeks earlier, before being allowed to return home, while the air around the village had been thick with smoke for several weeks.

It was a time of great uncertainty, with roads closing regularly due to the continuing bushfire threat.

"If you went into town you were unsure whether or not you'd be able to get back home," Mr Walsh said.

At the time their five children had all returned home along with their partners - some for the Christmas break, a couple in the middle of moving houses who had brought their furniture to be stored at the family home.

All of it was lost when the home was destroyed.

"It wasn't just us, the kids lost all their stuff - especially the ones who were moving, so we had a house full of their furniture and all that, obviously not insured," Mrs Walsh said.

Even a cast iron stove could not withstand the inferno's intensity.

Insurance proved to be a problem in the days and weeks that followed, as floods, COVID and supply issues sent costs soaring.

"Everybody was under insured because we were trying to rebuild during COVID, and it wasn't a matter of 'You can have this floor'," Mr Walsh said.

"You couldn't get this floor. It didn't matter how much money you had."

It was two days before the residents were allowed back into their streets, to see the destruction left behind.

"It was weird driving back from the Illawarra saying I want to get home, but there was no home to get back to," Ms Walsh said.

Ms Webb said she was in a state on "disbelief" when she saw what was left not only of her home, but also her street.

"It was like you just walked into a war zone and it was just unrecognisable," she said.

"To look around and to see so many of our friends and neighbours' places gone, it was pretty confronting, it was very stark."

While the destruction was confronting, Ms Webb said there was also a strange sense of relief, that she no longer had to worry about protecting her property from a fire that had been threatening for weeks.

"We had the kids, we had the dogs and we were safe, so we were happy," she said.

That relief was not always there, and Ms Webb said there were often tears shed for the losses experienced by herself, her family, and others in the tight-knit community.

And then there were the regular reminders that possessions were gone.

"You'd go looking for things, or you remembered you had something and you'd go to look for it, and then realise actually, no you don't have that anymore and you'd just have to sit with that," Ms Webb said.

"It probably happened for a good two years after the fires, and it still happens occasionally."

Finding somewhere to stay immediately after the fires proved to be a challenge.

It was the middle of summer in the popular tourist area, and while fires had left Conjola Park they continued to threaten nearby communities.

The Walsh family was offered accommodation by their builder who owned an Airbnb property in Mollymook, but on January 4 they were again evacuated to the Ulladulla Harbour.

They remained in the Airbnb for two years while their home was rebuilt, and Ms Walsh said they were lucky to have stable accommodation because others had to bounce around.

She spoke about the impacts of people being left homeless by the fires then having to move repeatedly, when addressing inquiries organised by state and federal governments.

Meanwhile those whose homes were spared by the fire had to survive weeks with no water or power.

Some even took refuge with the Walsh family in their temporary accommodation.

"In some way the people who didn't lose their houses were impacted more psychologically," Mr Walsh said.

As people dispersed to wherever they could find accommodation, the sense of community came under threat until Mr and Ms Walsh used a trailer to hold a barbecue out front their property.

"We invited as many neighbours as we could because as soon as the fires happened everyone scattered and the community broke down," Ms Walsh said.

"People found it really good to debrief."

They proved so popular more formal gatherings were organised for Hoylake Park beside the lake.

Three rolling gatherings were held "Because the women talk but the men tend not to," Ms Walsh said.

Ms Webb was among the people taking part in the gatherings, and said "It was really lovely coming back together in the park."

However COVID's arrival brought the community's gatherings to an end, while also impacting on repairs.

Even work on clearing the blocks was delayed for months.

Mr Walsh said he had a full excavator's ticket and could have cleared his block just days after the fire.

Ms Walsh said they also had a similar offer from a civil engineering company certified for asbestos.

"He said he'd bring his machines down and do the whole street for us within three days, but the insurer said to us if we put one foot on the property with an excavator we'd void our insurance, so we had to wait until the end of August to get on."

While many insurance claims were straight-forward because there was nothing left on the blocks, Ms Walsh said people whose homes suffered damage without being destroyed had "really, really struggled".

An insurance claim for one damaged home sat on a desk for 14 weeks, she said, by which time floods had hit the region.

When the insurance company went to inspect the property it claimed the damage had been caused by the floods and not the fire that had left the roof compromised.

"I think there are still people who are fighting with insurance companies," Ms Walsh said.

Meanwhile, many with damaged homes were reluctant to lodge insurance claims or reach out for the help offered to fire-affected communities.

At the same time there were rumours of people claiming their holiday houses or investment properties in Conjola Park were actually their primary homes, just so they could take advantage of government and charity hand-outs.

"That was actually quite soul-destroying, because there were people who missed out," Ms Webb said.

After living in a shed for a couple of years, she said it was finally time to look at rebuilding.

"We've been trying to get ourselves together, and work out what it is that we wanted to do," she said.

However Ms Webb said she still felt anxious every time she smelt smoke, needing to know what was on fire and whether it posed any threat,