Page 53 - Eclipse - RVC Alumni Magazine - Autumn 2020

The New South Wales fires 2020 – a personal account
John Aspley Davis, BVetMed 1970
As we glided through The Heads of Sydney Harbour in November 2019, the heavy pall of smoke receded into the distance. We thought how good it was to be on the open seas sailing to a tropical island 2,000 miles away and we would be rid of it. The acrid smell, reminiscent of that we smelt in New Zealand in 2009 with the Black Saturday Victorian fires, would not be hanging around by our return
in a week. How little we knew
that it would stay around for the whole summer until torrential rain smothered it.
During this time, a colleague was battling to visit, in Canberra, her husband diagnosed with cancer compatible with therapy, who died suddenly. They lived on the South East Coast of New South Wales. The direct journey to Canberra was about 100 miles. With the fires closing roads, the journey increased to 250 miles, then 350 miles. At one stage, by the grace of a pilot friend, she flew over the inferno below. The day the fire lapped at their home and business was the day of the funeral and evacuation. Helicopters and sirens dominated the service.
The trustees of the AVA Benevolent Fund heard of her plight of losing her lover, business manager, confidant and father of a 16-year-old and they asked if I could go down for a month intermittently whilst
it covered the cost. After driving for mile upon mile through a “Desolation of Smaug”, I was welcomed with a meal.
The compact small animal practice
had suffered no direct damage, but intermittent power had ravaged almost every conceivable electronic device, with lack of reliability being the major result: air conditioning filters and fans were damaged, a pathology unit would crash mid test, failed fridges led to vaccine loss and computers aborted.
Every Australian practice sees wildlife,
but there was not one case on my watch. The mammals that had burnt were either dead or in a wildlife hospital. The birds were recorded to have dropped like a stone, dead at the watcher’s feet as they tried to beat the fire front, but the oxygen had been consumed by the flames. I prescribed a Feliway plug-in for some traumatised cats, but the owner shyly returned it later in the day as he forgot
he had no power in the rescue caravan provided. The burnt paws of a cattle
dog needed yet more bandaging. The consoling of owners was a constant feature of a consultation. A traumatised owner broke down when innocently asked about how they fared. The response to seeing their horses terrified and some later found burnt to death after collapse from smoke inhalation. The boarding kennel’s owner who, with only minutes
of notice, called as many pet owners as possible to take their animals back and go to a safe shelter or to the beach. Those uncontactable had their pets put in cages where possible and tossed over fences
to waiting friends as the fire menaced the entrance. The vets who set up a triage room at this shelter to help and counsel. The Zoo that notwithstanding the terror managed to save most of the animals despite metres high flames surrounding them and destroying most of the houses in the nearby village and properties. One of my last cases was (successful) surgery on a GSD pyometra owned by the granddaughter of one of my first clients in Canberra, 44 years previously!
I visited or spoke with colleagues in all the practices from Milton in the north to
Bega in the south, as it transpired in the wake of an earlier small AVA delegation. Fortunately, none had suffered severe loss of property except for one practice that lost all their stored equipment and belongings in a large shed that until
two years prior had been their home and still had many of the trappings
of home. It was in a triangle with the practice and home buildings. Fires do not discriminate. The power failed again for hours as I shared a barbeque with the family.
Some vets were insufficiently insured, many of their clients were too. But the sense of resilience vibrated through
the community. With the trees already bursting forth with new life, the clients responded similarly. The teenager came third in his car race 80 miles away with his mother, the vet, able to support
him and forget the practice for a short space whilst this scribbler catered for the clients. I drove away content that this neighbourhood and my colleagues will survive and grow despite COVID-19 rising in the rear-view mirror.
CLASSNOTES
South Coast NSW Vets and Practice Staff
Regeneration post fire from Eurocoast Vet Centre
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