"February is when the really hot fire season starts, so no one will relax until after February," she said.
Melbourne-based Kon Karapanagiotidis, who has assisted refugees arriving in Australia for about two decades as chief executive officer of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, spent two days helping to prepare meals at a relief camp in Bairnsdale, a city of about 15,000 people on the fringe of a fire-ravaged region in Victoria state.
"At work, every day we see people who are displaced, who are away from families, homes or communities and who are without a safety net," he said. "It's really stark and jarring to see that among everyday Australians."
After five months of blazes, cooler weather has brought some relief to firefighting efforts, though now Australians are facing other natural hazards. Thunderstorms have brought torrential rain and flash floods to parts of Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales.
Australia is the world's driest inhabited continent and experiences bushfires every year, but the scale of the crisis this season has been extraordinary. At least 28 people have died as flames scorched an area the size of England. The bushfires may have released the equivalent of 900 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air - more than the nation's average emissions for an entire year, according to early estimates from scientists behind the Global Fire Emissions Database.
In the East Gippsland region where Hopkinson lives, state authorities took the unprecedented step before New Year's Eve of ordering more than 30,000 tourists to leave the area. That's drawn parallels with last year's California blazes that prompted a statewide emergency and orders for the evacuation of about 200,000 residents.
Dozens of communities in East Gippsland, one of Australia's worst-hit areas, were fully or partially shuttered during the fires, after power and water supplies were disrupted or access was blocked by charred, fallen trees.
Normally sleepy rural towns became locations for relief workers from organisations such as the Australian Red Cross, who served hot meals and offered support at makeshift camps. The charity has provided assistance at more than 100 relief centres. Some 50,000 people registered with its service to track people who were displaced or at risk.
Most of the camps have emptied, but local authorities are ready to reopen them if needed before the bushfire season ends in March.
The impact of the fires "is a lesson that dangerous climate change isn't some far off phenomenon in the future. It is happening now," said Michael Mann, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, who is living in Sydney on a sabbatical. "We are in the very best case scenario stuck with this new normal, where these sorts of catastrophic bushfire seasons become a regular occurrence."
Sharyn Thompson and Kali, her 7-year-old German Shepherd, an accredited therapy dog, were among those helping at the Bairnsdale centre. "Before I'd even got Kali out of the car, an older gentleman came over," said Thompson, from the nearby coastal resort of Loch Sport. "He buried his face into her fur and just cried - it almost had me in tears too."
At the peak of the crisis, in the first week of January, hundreds of people camped out in Bairnsdale, with families queuing for hours to get government relief payments. A Sikh volunteer group served up containers of vegetable curries and pasta dishes, while a high-street pharmacy chain distributed healthcare supplies from a yellow truck. A mobile veterinary clinic tended to wildlife rescued from ravaged areas, including koalas with singed limbs.
Away from the sports ground, in a tranquil spot on the banks of the Mitchell River, Gaye Dandridge, 58, and her cattle dog Indy spent almost two weeks in a caravan after evacuating from the town of Orbost, about 90km to the east on December 31.
"I've had my moments of crying, feeling lonely and thinking, What's going on?" she said. "Though I've spoken to people who've had it a lot worse than I have." Dandridge first attempted to return to Orbost on January 7, only to abandon her plans halfway into the journey after driving into a thick, choking haze. She eventually made it home four days later.
Daryl Parry, 63, is preparing for an extended stay in Bairnsdale after fleeing from Wairewa, a rural enclave about an hour's drive to the east. "It's day by day now," said Parry, standing in front of his modest camp of a small blue tent and white gazebo, his temporary home since January 2. "I'm planning to stay here, unless they can find me a place to live."
There were similar scenes at relief camps in other fire-stricken communities along the south coast of neighbouring New South Wales state, including the Bega Showgrounds at the heart of a dairy-producing region blighted by fires.
"Some communities have been surrounded by fires for weeks and months," said Noel Clement, director of Australian programmes at the Australian Red Cross. That's led to the "trauma of constantly being on alert and constantly being prepared to evacuate."
Even those who remained in their communities faced challenges, said Julian Poulter, a climate risk consultant and resident in Narooma, a town about five hours' drive south of Sydney that's been threatened by nearby blazes in recent weeks. Days of power outages and dwindling supplies of food and fuel led to "a feeling of societal breakdown," and had echoes of Hurricane Katrina's impact in the US, he said.
In Bairnsdale, Hopkinson said that her community and other rural townships are steeling for more disruptions this summer and that many accept evacuations are likely to become more commonplace in an era of prolonged droughts and rising temperatures.
"There are too many variables in what is a remote, large area," she said, rifling through containers for a saucepan. "We don't have the resources to be able to cope with a disaster on such a big scale."
- Bloomberg
