Dr James Langley – Surviving the NYE Fires
April 9, 2020
No Way Out
April 9, 2020
FEATURE
Batemans Bay general practitioner, Dr David Rivett OAM, takes a philosophical approach to the recent bushfires that swept through the South Coast of NSW.
Adrenaline does not last forever.
By late January 2020, Dr David Rivett had faced down the immediate threat of bushfires to his home four times.
He says the energy he once felt to rise to the impending disaster was almost completely sapped.
“The first time you’re enormously energised, you’ve got heaps of energy because the adrenaline is really flowing for about 24 hours. The second bout you’ve still got extra energy from the adrenaline, but the third time the fires approach, you really feel like just going to bed and letting it go and see what happens and the fourth time it came through… we were lucky we had a wind change before it hit.”
He adds, “But I think we’ve burnt out in all directions; we feel quite secure now.”
The Batemans Bay general practitioner has been living and working on the South Coast for close to 44 years. And while he’s faced bushfires before, the 1994 fires weren’t nearly as bad as those the area has been experiencing since New Year’s Eve, 2020.
“There were much stronger winds this time. When you’ve got a powerful wind, it’s like trying to put a lid on a volcano – there’s no holding it back. The fire will go wherever it wants to go. It doesn’t matter how many water bombers we’ve got or how hard the RFS is working when you’ve got howling winds.”
On the morning of New Year’s Eve, when Dr Rivett woke about 5.20am he could smell smoke and saw huge flames in the distance. As the day went on, the fires just got closer and closer to the farm.
He’d had warning a few days prior that the fire danger was extremely high, and in preparation he moved his 130 cattle to the front paddock, away from the trees at the back of his farm.
It would have been possible to leave, but Dr Rivett felt confident about staying given there was quite a large cleared area around the house.
As a result of the fires, about 400 acres of his 705-acre farm has been severely burnt out, but the rest of the farm is in fairly good shape.
With typical understatement and stoicism, he says, “Now we have lots of fencing to do.”
And while the fires came within 150 metres of the house, he counts himself lucky compared to some of his patients – many of whom have lost everything, including irreplaceable possessions such as military medals, heirloom jewellery, or photos of their kids.
“Some of them just got out by the skin of their teeth, and as you know we’ve had a couple of deaths down here. It’s been pretty catastrophic.”
In the days following the fires, Dr Rivett was attending patients at Batemans Bay Hospital.
In terms of the impact of the bushfires on the delivery of healthcare in the area, Dr Rivett says highway closures meant it was difficult to move patients to Moruya for CT scans. There were also increased presentations related to smoke inhalation, as well as patients looking for treatment for anxiety.
While it’s been an extremely trying time for the community, Dr Rivett says there are plenty of good things that have happened as a result.
“If you’re out and about at the shops or at Bunnings, the first thing people will say is ‘how did you go in the fires?’ and ‘do you still have your house?’ It’s really pulled people in the community together quite a bit and people are helping one another which is good.”
In terms of improving the disaster management response, he says the biggest lesson has to be around telecommunications.
“The advice was constantly to get onto the RFS website, but the trouble is with no mobile phone service, people were left without any information.
“One of the first things that’s got to come out of an inquiry is making sure transmissions towers are fire-proof and they’ve got a battery back-up for a couple of days in a concrete bunker – so people can be warned and informed.”
He adds, “I’m sure lots of lessons will come out of it, but when you’ve got a forest fire with howling winds there’s no way human beings can stop it from going where it wants to go.”