Bushfire evacuees, glorious hospitality and dodgy supervisors

During the bushfire season so far this year, we have left home on three occasions when a fire was in our suburb or in the suburb next door. On each occassion our very good friends have managed to put us up at short notice. All 11 heartbeats of us.

If I haven't mentioned it before, we live in a "wildfire zone" in the Yarra Ranges, and rather than that being an abstract concept, we now understand what it means.

The first bushfire in our area was on Quarry Rd in Upper Ferntree Gully and burnt about 5 hectares and was threatening the Dandenong Ranges National Park. The second was about 800 metres from our house on Sandells Rd in Tecoma and again burnt about 5 hectares of the very dense Dandenong Ranges National Park near us.

The third time was a doosy. That was the 350 hectare fire which had all in Upwey, Tecoma, Belgrave and Belgrave Heights worried. Leaving alone with all the animals and our one year old while D was in Queensland was truly scary. People were panicking on the roads. The plume of smoke from our back deck and when I got on the road was menacing. I hope I don't experience that feeling again for a long time.

People all over Victoria welcomed evacuees and I reckon they all deserve something for putting up with the disruption, the messes potentially left behind, the extra food cooked at short notice, their amicability to alter their existence for the sake of their friends and family.

In our case our friends were surprisingly calm about us bringing the chooks as well as the two cats and two dogs. They had been at a wedding in Healesville the night that Victoria burned and far too close for comfort to some major fires so they knew how it felt.

I think I was a bit dazed the first time we rocked up on their doorstep. We felt all helter skelter. They went into action mode and took over, bathing our daughter, feeding us, while we concentrated on settling the animals in and answering worried phone calls from rellies all over Australia.

I had thought of course that this would never happen to me. Who would have thought that we'd be fleeing with all our most important possessions. Feels positively war time or something.

It's quite alarming and consolidating deciding on your most important possessions. Try it sometime. Then imagine the stress of a fire nearby and picture what happened at Kinglake and Marysville and see how you feel.

Nature is truly letting us know who is boss around our neck of the woods.

Which brings me to wondering if those in the city really get how this feels - evacuating that is and truly feeling threatened by bushfire.

Very few of us can really imagine the horror of losing loved ones and homes to this, as so many in Victoria have done. But we perhaps get a glimpse of it in some of the more ethical and in-depth stories that emerged after the fires.

But how have city folk who were untouched by this (and who took no evacuees in), viewed this event?

In our back-to-normal day-to-day lives what concessions have been made for those who have had to leave homes, if even for only a few days? Have work colleagues or clients been supportive or just publicly supportive? Or maybe, they've even publicly said no concessions are deserved for evacuees. "No, I simply cannot change my appointment just because you've had to pack up your family and leave your home. That's not my business!"

We were recently shocked when D's supervisor was REALLY not happy about D working from home on Tuesday, the last extreme fire day. He actually said to D "So does that mean you're not going to be coming to work on days when it's a bit hot outside?" Speechless, when D told me.

It was not as though D was going to miss an important meeting. He works unsupervised inside the office all the time and is at a level at which this is expected. His supervisor has this impression that work just doesn't happen in home spaces. Don't get me started on that little sub-topic or the issue of micro-management...

D didn't feel comfortable leaving me alone with our one year old and the animals to pack up and leave if the situation went the way it had gone three other times in the last three weeks. "Well why don't you just pack up tonight and come to work tomorrow as per normal" his supervisor said on Monday night.

Perhaps he was about to offer us his couch and backyard for 8 animals while we ate him outta house and home. Fat chance.

And the reprimand continued at 8am on Tuesday morning. "Well D, I think I've been flexible enough", he said, "now it's your turn to show some flexibility and come into work. The weather looks fine. It's not even hot". 

Moron. Ever heard of gale force winds and bushfire threat? D was reprimanded yet again about it today. I am beyond pissed off. It has just occurred to him to check to see if the company has a policy... yadda yadda yadda

We all got the VIC Police text messages  on Monday night telling us to be super alert for storm and fire related dangers. Thank goodness the weather that day as well as the preventative planning meant that Tuesday was not as bad as first thought. But I'm sure D's supervisor will take credit.

I am hard pressed to think of an employer who would expect their employees to put work ahead of the safety of their family. But perhaps someone out there can enlighten me...