Thoughts on Fire

On Saturday night, a part of the Camden Markets caught fire, which is but a stones’ throw from my house. It was a very impressive fire, the flames reached at least 30 feet above the three story buildings and smoke poured out everywhere. It caught on extremely fast and burnt a lot of property, but I’ve got to admit, I was a little blasé about the whole thing.

Camden was as usual over-crowded with tourists, who were all unceremoniously evicted from their evenings drinking, so there were a lot of people just hanging around, fascinated by the pretty fire. But it was the matter of a couple of hours’ coverage on the news channel and that was it. The destruction of the very old stables area would have been a great loss to the cultural experience of this city but it was mainly warehouses, and after all, it is just property - no lives were lost. The most annoying things really was that the streets surrounding the incident have been blocked off ever since so getting around has been that much harder. Camden always smells, it just smells a little differently at the moment is all...

However, what it did do was remind me very strongly of the Canberra fires in 2003. Four days of pacing at home, terrified that we may lose our house, watching a blood red sky for any sign that the black soot falling had embers attached, hosing down the house along with every other person in the street, all our precious possessions dumped into our cars with the electric garage door always open in case the power went... nothing I think could ever come close to that.

Well, I certinaly hope that I never have to experience anything like that again. It wasn't for the faint of heart!

Mind you, the real sense of community and of belonging that occurred was amazing too. With 530 homes lost, everyone that wasn’t affected knew someone that was, and donated every spare piece of property they had without a second thought. One of the guys at work lost everything, and the office raised a considerable sum to help out. And I remember a call going out over the radio for people to please stop donating to one of the animal shelters as it had enough food to last the new inhabitants for over a year. It was as if everyone found their higher selves and gave freely without thought.

I guess the biggest impact for me from the Camden fire was that it made me think a lot about home and of the people I’ve left back there. The people are all that matter after all. Possessions can always be replaced and houses rebuilt. Photos are more difficult I’ll grant you, but our lives live within us after all...

So I guess I’m just wanting to let you all know that I’m thinking of you and that I hope you are well.

Take care of yourselves. Love always, Kat.