My Fire Story by Jarrah Dundler

It was November 2019, smoke from bushfires burning across the Northern Rivers blanketed our town, and I was on the phone talking to my partner about socks.

‘Socks? What socks?’

‘The random ones,’ she almost shouted. ‘Under the laundry sink. Fill them with sand. If a fire starts on Fairymount chuck them in the downpipes and fill the gutters with water from the hose.’

I got to it, not 100% sure if I was doing the right thing. We’d lived in Kyogle half our lives but had never faced the threat of bushfires before. I don’t know how real the threat was, but with all that smoke and the bush behind our house so brown and dry it looked like a tiny spark would make the whole thing go ka-boom, it certainly felt real.

Thankfully, the fires didn’t come to us on that day, or at all during Black Summer. Now, almost two years on from what feels like my ‘fire story’, I’ve just begun working on a project with Kyogle Family Support Services putting together a book on the experiences of people who were impacted by those fires. Fire fighters who faced unprecedented conditions. People who lost their homes. Volunteers who looked after injured wildlife.

Over the last two years, professionally, I’ve worn two hats. One, my writing hat and the other, my community services hat; holding parttime jobs in in mental health, disability, drug harm-min, and emergency services. And as I started off on this project, I slapped on my writing hat and started reading up on the fires, taking notes, talking to people, and lining up interviews. An idea of the final product, the book, started shaping in my mind. A weave of interviews, stats and facts and figures. Not so much academic, but weighty. But, every now and then a question would arise. How could I make sure people involved were supported through the process, that it didn’t re-traumatise them? Could being involved be of actual benefit to people and their recovery? Whose story was this anyway?

Searching for answers to these questions lead me to discover and learn about a growing practice called creative recovery, where arts are used to help people come to terms with natural disasters. To help people make sense of what they’ve been through, provide a catalyst for conversations to occur, and maybe even re-frame stories and see them through a different light.

I read up about projects happening all over the country, and connected with artists and community workers delivering creative recovery projects across the Northern Rivers.  A song-writing workshop for isolated men impacted by the fires. The Lismore Floods Stories project, where participants chucked on a raincoat and gumboots and walked around town with an iPod listening to people’s stories of the 2017 flood. A poetry evening, part of the Rappville Creative project, where locals orated the anecdotes and stories of towns’ rich history, while a bush poet scribbled down notes to weave into a community poem.

What all these projects had in common, and for other successful projects I read about from around the country, was the emphasis placed on process. It was viewed equally, if not more importantly, than the final product; the exhibition, the book, or the song. The projects all provided opportunities for genuine engagement with people, for people to come together to share their experiences, to heal, to connect.

Now, when I’m thinking about the project, I’m thinking more about the process of getting there. Of community story-telling events, writing workshops, call outs for submissions of photos and writing from community members. And when I picture the end product, the book, it’s more scrapbook, a collation of all these things from community members.

And, so as I venture out in this next phase of these projects, I know more often than not, I’m going to be wearing my community services hat, and leaving my writing hat at the door.