Hope springs from the ashes

On Monday 7 February 2011, as the country emerged soggy and battered from floods and cyclones, the nation also stopped to remember the horror of Black Saturday.
Two years ago, that day claimed Tina Moonen’s Labertouche home and very nearly her life.
Now, a week after she finally moved into her new home she tells a story of recovery, resilience and survival.
Driving to the Moonens’ Labertouche property, the aftermath of Black Saturday hits. The still-charred trees become more frequent at the roadside the further you drive, black against new, green growth.
The road going out of the town is windy and narrow and when Tina drove down it two years ago she was flanked by roaring flames.
“As we rounded the bend that led us to Jackson’s Track, for the first time in my life I realised I had no control over my own fate. If Craig had not been driving I doubt we would’ve gotten out. The wall of flames we were confronted with was just that – a wall of flames. Where was the road? I couldn’t see any of the houses that were once there. Trees were alight in front and behind us but my brave husband just kept driving.”
This is an excerpt of Tina’s written account of Black Saturday, penned just a week after her house was completely destroyed.
Holed up at her parents’ place, Tina bunkered down to write the story while the Bunyip Ridge fire still burned.
“The reason I wrote it was because I didn’t want to repeat it every time someone asked, but I wanted everyone to know,” Tina said.
And part of her message after Black Saturday is how lucky she is to be alive.
“If I knew then what it was going to be like, I never would’ve stayed in a million years. In hindsight it was just crazy.”
Tina and her husband Craig made the decision to stay and defend their home one day before disaster struck, with only their childhood memories of Ash Wednesday to base the decision on.
“Of course we were going to stay and have a crack.”
They stayed up all night preparing, with no clue that all of their careful plans and thorough preparations stood no chance against the terror that awaited.
They stood on the roof of their home, literally armed with water pistols against a force that was to claim 173 lives and engulf a state.
Her youngest son Brandon, then 11, was taken to his grandmother’s in Garfield North and her eldest Jarrod, then 14, stayed to defend on Friday night. In the morning it was back to preparations and at 10.30am they were still clearing away vegetation from the side of the house.
“Then a massive plume of smoke appeared at the corner of our property, it looked like an atomic bomb had exploded,” Tina said. “The smoke was so dark and thick, the sun was red.”
It was then she decided to take Jarrod out to join his little brother. On the way out she drove past emergency crews setting up roadblocks which made it very difficult for Tina when she tried to return to Labertouche.
Did reality hit then that by passing those roadblocks she, in the eyes of the authorities, had a death wish?
“I am pretty determined,” she said. “I would’ve pulled out my boltcutters and cut down fences: there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t get back to Craig.”
Back at her house with Craig, the couple were now cut off from help. Tina said the CFA and DSE had moved out of the Bunyip State Forest intending to let it burn all the way down to the top of Labertouche Road because of the speed at which is was now moving.
Tina sat on the roof armed with super soakers and swimming goggles, looking better prepared for a pool party than for the fight for her life. Craig was at the west end of the house, with a high pressure hose, facing the oncoming flames.
“Gum trees were exploding, sending fire bombs from 500 metres away, and over the top of the house. We were surrounded by fire now, thinking, we are here for the duration now, we have to save the house. Even then it didn’t occur to me that we could die.”
They worked at putting out spot fires, but the wind had stopped and Tina couldn’t see her hand in front of her face.
“Then all of the smoke lifted and there was just fire. There was a huge wall of fire just 500 metres from the house.
“ The straps of our goggles were melting down the sides of our face, so we tore them off and threw them down on the retaining wall.”
Tina touches the black, rubbery smear on the bricks – all that is left of the goggles, remembering the chaos that followed.
She called out to Craig and found him in the back yard. It was then, Tina said, they both looked at other and realised, “we don’t have a hope in hell.”
After fleeing Labertouche and merely a few hours spent in Tonimbuk with family and friends, Tina returned that night to find out what remained of her home.
“It was the weirdest thing ever, fence posts were burnt from the ground up. Only the tops of the posts were left, burning on the wire,” Tina said.
“There was nothing left. Motorbikes were blobs of aluminium.”
Among the remains were the middle brick wall of the house, the fountain in the front yard and small ceramic drawers from a jewellery box given to Tina on her wedding day by her mother.
Her son later made a house for the tiny porcelain drawers.
“I didn’t deal very well with the label ‘victim’. It says you are defeated, that you are done. I’m just not a victim. I’m not.”
True to her word, and almost two years on from the devastation that saw her family living in a school portable and using outdoor showers and toilets, the Moonens have moved into their new home on the same Labertouche property.
“I couldn’t wait to see the back of that bloody shower! Now I can go to the loo and flush it, it’s awesome!”
Tina credits her recovery to the many people who helped her – the boys’ school St Paul’s Warragul and especially her YMCA colleagues. “Those people just gave me their strength, they held me up.”