A year after the start of the catastrophic Gospers Mountain bushfire, victims say Australia’s inaction on climate change is ‘unforgivable’

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Over a million hectares of land were destroyed when the mega-fire ravaged New South Wales on October 26 last year, leaving dozens of communities traumatized

It’s been exactly a year since a single lightning strike at Gospers Mountain started one of the most devastating bushfires in Australian history

In total, the Gospers Mountain fire on October 26 burned 512,626 hectares in the districts of Lithgow, Hawkesbury, Hunter Valley, Lower Hunter, Cudgegong, Blue Mountains and Central Coast – an area twice the size than ACT

By the time torrential rains extinguished the mega-blaze in early February, it had burned over a million hectares, killed millions of animals, destroyed a hundred homes and left dozens of communities frightened and traumatized

A year later, residents and community leaders are calling for more action to be taken to reduce climate change, so that such a disaster does not happen again

Luca Saunders, a grade 9 student at Blue Mountains Grammar School, said she had triggering flashbacks to this day when she smelled smoke or saw a fire truck

His home in Blackheath was in the middle of four different bushfires raging at the time, including the destructive Gospers Mountain fire

« We were severely affected by the Grose Valley fire and the Gospels Mountain fire, both incredibly close to my house on both sides »

Luca was evacuated to Victoria with her sister, and the couple were separated from their parents for three days, who stayed to defend their home against the apocalyptic conditions

“I remember the ashes falling from the sky, everything was white and at night there was always a red glow on the horizon”, said Luca “It was an absolutely terrifying time and we never knew if we would see our house again tomorrow We never knew if our livelihoods would be maintained over the next year « 

« Personally, I get trigger flashbacks, if I see a fire engine or hear a siren », she added « Or if I smell smoke in the air

Luca said it was « incredibly frustrating » for bushfire survivors to see how the federal government responded to the crisis

“With the COVID-19 pandemic, their response was incredibly quick, and it was very frustrating for survivors to see that this did not happen when our lives are affected by the climate crisis and these fires. bush, ”she said

« It is also incredibly difficult to see that a year after the crisis we are facing in this country the government has still not made progress in its climate regulation, as it is widely accepted that the climate crisis was at hand. the origin of bush fires « 

Jim Casey, who has been a Sydney firefighter for over 20 years, has witnessed the Gospers Mountain fire on several occasions

“The scale of the fire is what really sticks with me,” he said. “This fire had its own ecosystem in terms of how much heat it produced But it wasn’t the only one – we have had fires burning, really from the Queensland border to the Victorian border, and thousands and thousands of men and women trying to cope with them as best they could « 

M Casey said climate change was « without a doubt » what sparked the fires, and the extreme weather conditions associated with climate change

« We had a short, hot winter that narrowed the window we could do harm reduction burns through, and then the summer was unusually hot, with dry lightning at the end of the drought, » did he declare « And so you end up with the catastrophic climate firestorm that characterized the last fire season »

He said managing fire risks to a large extent requires « policy action » on fossil fuel combustion and on climate change itself

“What is unforgivable in my opinion is the government’s inability to act on the root causes of these fires,” he said. “With every investigation, all the bushfire scientists, former fire chiefs all agree that it was climate change that drove these fires to overdrive

« And to solve this problem, we need to start talking about burning fossil fuels, exporting fossil fuels and moving towards some kind of carbon neutral future

« Instead our government is warning to start extracting gas and selling it It’s just not good enough It’s fiddling while Australia burns, » Mr. Casey

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A year after the start of the catastrophic Gospers Mountain bushfire, victims say Australia’s inaction on climate change is ‘unforgivable’

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Gospers Mountain, Australian bushfires, climate change, Blue Mountains