Hell fire

Into the light: Jane O'Connor with one of her her pet dogs.

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THE PALL OF smoke is getting bigger and darker: I can see it through the large windows at the back of the house, still seeming distant but starting to block out the sun. The wind is swirling in crazy patterns, objects are blowing around, branches are bending and swaying. The back door is almost wrenched off its hinges every time someone opens it. Crisp leaves and dry twigs are bucketing down, pelting the roof and windows like a hailstorm, filling up the backyard. The lawns are littered.

Even though the air-conditioning has been off for some time, I'm not feeling the heat – too mentally preoccupied. There's still enough gravity feed from the bore's header tank to keep filling the bath.

I grab the car keys off the bench and go to the car to listen to the radio coverage. It is stifling out here, hard to breathe even with the car door open and the air-conditioning cranked up.

There's no mention of Kinglake, just more about Kilmore and Wandong and Murrindindi. I find it a bit of a confusing jumble of information. It's just after four o'clock: I constantly watch the smoke plume, but still can't pinpoint its exact location. It's off to the right, down near the powerline road, and I'm assuming it is heading elsewhere since the wind appears to still be coming from the north. The weather vane on the chimney is doing a crazy rotation in the gale-force wind, swinging one way and then the next, freewheeling. The wind, howling relentlessly, hasn't slowed and it's impossible to read its direction clearly. I'm hanging out for the predicted wind change.

The smell of smoke is strong now, with a eucalyptus-oil tang to it. The sun is rapidly disappearing. I'm starting to hear a rumble – my hearing has become acute – but it still seems distant.

All my senses are on full alert, and the decision to choose fight over flight comes automatically. I don't decide consciously: there is simply no flight response, no desire to leave now. We go with it from here – no thoughts of getting into cars and trying to drive away. I've had it drilled into me that a car is the worst place to be in a firestorm.

Now there is the beginning of a roar, distant and low, like a growling noise with a building baritone edge to it. I look at the weather vane again and it is spot-on south-west. I feel goosebumps despite the sweat that's running down inside my woollen jacket and soaking my heavy socks. My hair is sticking to my face and neck.

Suddenly, a deafening roar makes me snap my head up in fright. It's an awful noise, like jet aircraft coming in low at full throttle. In less than a second, a strip of the back, main-road boundary has burst into flame, which now starts to spread sideways at an alarming rate.

Where the hell did that come from? This is not just the crackle of a fire as it catches dry grass and twigs: angry red shafts are shooting 20 to 30 metres into the air. Flames are curling and swirling, bending to the ground and then flicking up even higher, curving over and flinging balls of fire ahead and into the distance. They rocket over the property like missiles and are dropping like bombs. God almighty, it's going over the top of us, I think. It's a terrifying dance.

But then it starts to skim across the grass in the paddock. This is not normal – the word `hellfire' comes to mind. I run like crazy into the house, making a beeline for the bath. I count out the number of wet tea-towels needed for everyone's faces and dunk them in the water. Flames are still running down the paddock, skimming across the surface at incredible speed.

The room is filling with smoke. In spite of the wet towels along the doorways, it's billowing in, thick and cloying. A smoke alarm goes off, a piercing, brain-numbing siren. The smoke is making me cough. Where's that bloody dog? Everything outside is catching fire now: I can see the big gum tree out the back flaring and flaming.

Shit, I can't go out the back door now. Pitch-darkness rolls down like a blind, in what seems like seconds. For one horrible moment I fear Meg may have taken off outside – she'd follow my husband Sean anywhere.

But there's no leaving now; I have to stay with the house. The smoke is already noxious and I'm struggling with it despite the wet cloth pressed to my face. I can see, courtesy of the ghastly flickering glow from flaming trees and bushes, that the garden beds are one giant and deadly blaze.

The screaming roar is coming back, combining with the smoke alarm in a maddening clamour. My lungs are feeling scorched now and my only thought is escaping the smoke that's getting denser and more bitter to breathe by the second. Mustn't panic; must keep my breathing shallow.

I yell again for Meg, but the very action chokes me. In a last ditch effort I check the spare room at the back of the house. She's there! Lying low under the piano, not moving, just making the throaty noise she favours when she wants attention. The intelligent eyes are looking at me, her chin resting on outstretched front paws. I try to get her up but she doesn't want to move. She licks my hand and face, though she's not normally a licker. I coax her, but she won't budge, preferring to stay as flat as she can on the floor. I smile to myself and decide she's the smart one: all those "Crawl low under smoke" messages come into my head. The clever old dog! She's slowed her breathing right down; the wild-dog instinct has kicked in. I lie down on the floor, my arms around her, and she cuddles in and licks my chin. I love this dog.

It's easier to breathe at floor level. I make her start to crawl with me. "Let's get up the hallway to the bedroom or the study." I keep talking to her. The bent, arthritic legs aren't liking the crawling motion and she stops to protest. I coax; she licks my hand. The screaming smoke alarm is seriously rattling her – and me, for that matter.

My eyes sting and stream water, my lungs are seriously hurting. Stay low, crawl under the smoke. Above all, don't panic. I have no concept of time – this could be taking seconds, or minutes. I'm not sure what stage the fire has reached. Has the front gone through? That terrible roar would suggest it is right on top of us. Is the main ember blast still to come? It's pitch-black now. I know the drill: hunker down and wait until the light comes up again and the fire front has fully passed. Then wait a while longer until it appears safe to get out onto burnt ground. Beyond that I have no strategy; I have to deal with this moment by moment. I feel strangely and utterly calm, quite lightheaded in fact, as if I've taken a tranquilliser.

I pass the pantry, hauling my hunkered-down dog by the collar, then stand up, feel for a torch and find one, and grab the car keys off the bench. It's not the keys I want, but the tiny LED torch attached to the ring.

More smoke alarms have gone off. The noise is unbearable: the jet-engine roar; huge bursts of exploding yellow light, like bombs going off; screeching alarms; the thump of heavy debris landing on the roof and glancing off windows; things crashing into the side walls. There is a graunching sound of roofing iron moving, as nails and bolts strain, lift and slap down again.

I head past the spare bedroom and somehow think to grab a woollen blanket. I leave Meg in the hallway, backtrack to the bath and soak the blanket: it seems vitally important to do this. There is enough flickering light from the fire to provide murky visibility.

Meg has followed me back and is making a beeline for the piano, agitated and trying to shut her ears. I coax her back and drag her, along with the wet blanket, back to the kitchen. Every breath is agony; the sopping wool weighs a tonne. I can't help thinking that I'm never going to get the water stains out of the carpet, but I'll worry about that later. I seriously want to break the smoke alarms: the continual, piercing screams are making me feel physically sick.

I look around for something that will reach one, but no luck. I pull a bottle of water out of the fridge on the way past – suddenly I'm staggeringly thirsty and I need to keep up the fluids.

We get down on the floor in the hallway. To hell with the carpet: I pour water into my hand and Meg slurps it. She's panting heavily. I manage to haul her along, though she's flopped to a dead weight, and the leaden blanket and water bottle are somehow making the journey as well.

We reach the study, but Meg runs back out the door. I can't follow her: all the effort is playing havoc with my ability to breathe and I will myself not to gulp the air in. We are heading into sheer survival mode: I realise I have to leave poor Meg to her own devices, as trying to keep track of her is mentally and physically paralysing.

I've done my best for her to this point. The decision makes me feel incredibly sad: the things that dog has survived and now she's in danger of suffocating to death. Then again, she may be fine. I can't dwell on it.

Without Warning by Jane O'Connor, Hardie Grant Books, paperback, $32.99.

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