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When Garry Morgan arrived home on the end of the week, his rural mid-north coast property was encircled by a massive cloud of smoke. Less than twenty-four hours later, two houses on his street would be lost, and the nearby woodland became a scorched landscape.

A Town Grappling with Loss

The township of Bulahdelah, around 235km north of Sydney, has found itself at the heart of a devastating event after a veteran firefighter died on Sunday evening when he was hit by a falling tree. This marks a “foreboding start” to the bushfire season.

Four structures have been lost in the wider 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,” Morgan stated. “My dogs stayed right by me, it was frightening.”

Scenes of Destruction and Resilience

Bulahdelah is a common pause on the Pacific Highway for tourists on their way up the mid-north coast to coastal destinations 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 ground crews who were working to contain a fire that had burnt 4,000 hectares since Friday.

Heavy vehicles slowed to observe traffic cones and warning signs, the charred eucalypts and ash-covered ground on each side of the highway evidence of how far the fire had swept through the adjacent Myall Lakes national park. It was still at a 'watch and act' alert level on Monday evening.

A Hub of Emergency Response

In Bulahdelah, though, it would appear as a typical day if not for the helicopters circling overhead and smell of smoke lingering in the air.

A fuel depot for aircraft has been established at the town’s showground, turning it into a hub for around 300 firefighters and volunteers who have come from across the state to help.

On Monday afternoon, cartons of water were being offloaded from trucks and lollies were being packaged into zip lock bags. One firefighter noted that they needed a water bottle every 20 minutes when on the active fire ground.

Personal Accounts from the Fireground

Clouds of smoke were continuing to emit from glowing hotspots 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 scorched stuffed toy remained attached 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 only remaining sign of how the landscape used to look. 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, telling him “you have roughly 30 minutes and then a blaze will arrive”. His estimate was spot on.

“We doused the buildings and shed down, sprayed the fence line,” he said, and then his reaction turned to “alarm”. “I said to myself, ‘this is overwhelming’,” he said. “But I refused to leave.”

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

An Environment Altered

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

“It once rained rain every week,” he said. “We’ve never had fires like this. 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, other than a broken headlight on a car and a container of wood stored for winter that had burnt to ash.

“I’ve been here many, many times,” he said. “A few years ago a fire almost approached a nearby ridge and that was pretty scary then, but the wind changed.

“The conditions are far more arid now. It came from everywhere, and the firefighters essentially protected it [the property].”

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

“You hear reports say, ‘The speed was unbelievable’,” he said. “You think it’s over there, and all of a sudden it surrounds you. I understand the feeling. I told my friend to just get out, and he did.”

Fire Service Update and Continuing Danger

Kirsty Channon, public information officer for the NSW Rural Fire Service, said crews from multiple agencies had come from “right up and down the coast” to help with the firefighting operation and had done an “incredible work” 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. “The threat persists.

“There have been instances of the Pacific Highway closing and reopening a few times, the fire jump backwards and forwards. It remains uncontained, it is expected to spread.”

Channon said work in the immediate future would center on the tiny township of Nerong, which was expected to be hit by the Pacific Highway blaze on Monday evening. Residents had been urged to leave if not prepared, and have a fire plan.

“Spot fires are popping up 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.”