RISING FROM THE ASHES

We have never seen a bushfire season like it: 28 people dead, more than 2000 homes destroyed, 10 million hectares burnt, one billion animals perished and a global wake-up call for immediate action on climate change. Meet the incredible Australian women rebuilding our nation and giving us hope – in true Aussie spirit

The FIRIES

Jess Farlow, 33, agreed the fires were definitely different this year. “They were just much more intense and much bigger,” she says. And she would know. Jess has been a volunteer firie since she was 14 years old and is now one of the few female captains, heading up the Ourimbah Rural Fire Service Brigade on the NSW Central Coast. This season her crew were dispatched throughout NSW to many of the most threatening fire fronts – the Gospers Mountain fire in the north-west of Sydney, the deadly fires on the South Coast and in the Blue Mountains at Lithgow. But the worst day for her didn’t involve being on the frontlines.

‘‘It was 5am and I couldn’t sleep – which is weird for me. But I got up and I looked at my phone and saw the headline ‘Two volunteer firefighters killed’. I just stopped in my tracks and almost forgot to breathe. I scanned for details. No names were given but I panicked when I read they were fighting the Green Wattle Creek blaze on the outskirts of Sydney’s south-west. Two of my guys were dispatched there. I started frantically sending off texts and calling people. Finally, after what felt like forever, I heard back from one of the guys with the joyous news that both were alive. “We’re all good and yes we’ve called our wives,’’ the text read.

“Out of all of the fires I had been to this summer, that moment was so scary for me. When you are in a volunteer fire unit these people become like your second family. I would do anything for them,” she says.