Oral history project, documentary record communities' memories of Black Summer bushfires

After the Black Summer bushfires, people from Cobargo, Quaama, Nerrigundah, and surrounding regions spoke with oral historians working for the National Library of Australia (NLA) to record their memories and experiences of the Badja Forest Road bushfire.

The project was a collaboration between the NLA and the Cobargo Bushfire Resilience Centre (CBRC). The CBRC also commissioned a local filmmaker to make a documentary to support the oral history archive.

Key people behind those projects will speak in a panel discussion at the NLA in Canberra on Saturday 29 March at 1 pm, after a screening of the documentary, The Day She Stole the Sun, at 11 am.

It was Rhonda Ayliffe, project lead for the CBRC, project manager for the Badja Forest Road fire oral history project, and executive producer of the documentary, who hatched the idea of creating oral histories.

She said media had made Cobargo synonymous with the Black Summer bushfires.

“Media told our story for us, and people started to doubt their own experience, the truth of that,” Ms Ayliffe said.

Others were not given the chance to tell their story.

“They had a different experience, and nobody knew they were there,” she said. “That was the first thing that made me think we should be capturing this ourselves, put them at the centre of this, and empower them to tell the story.”

Robyn Williams, one of the interviewees, illustrates the fact that people’s experiences varied and why she wanted to be involved.

“Our experience out there [in the forest] was a lot different from being in town,” Ms Williams said. “It is a different story altogether.”

The community did not have all the skills needed however, nor the mindset, with many still reeling from the bushfires.

Ms Ayliffe asked herself who did this best in Australia.

She approached the NLA in 2020 and successfully applied to the NSW Government’s Bushfire Community Resilience and Recovery Fund.

A lot of thought went into the approach and process for the oral history interviews.

There was a balanced mix of people from across the area affected by the fire, and the oral historians visited each community to introduce themselves and explain the project, understanding each community was different.

The interviews are whole-of-life, not just about the fires, so the experience is contextualised in that person’s life.

People were given control.

“That was something we worked on with the NLA, that people could tell the story for themselves, and could control what was done with that story,” Ms Ayliffe said.

Around two-thirds of the 60-odd interviews are now freely accessible online, some are accessible after making a request, while others have restrictions such as not being accessible during the person’s lifetime.

“It isn’t about media or researchers, but people telling their story, and the NLA was completely on board with that,” she said.

Many interviewees had a follow-up interview the next day. That helped to ensure the interview was not too much, particularly given the subject matter.

It also gave people a chance to think about what they had already said, and if something came up, they could think about that overnight and talk about it the following day.

Ms Williams, who did the interview with her partner and her daughter, said once they started talking to the interviewer, more and more memories came up.

“It brought up quite a few important and relevant things for each of us, so I think it is good to record those for the future,” Ms Williams said. “It is good to hear what we talked about because we forget about the details and the memories associated with the experience.”

She wanted to share their story with others and how different it was for them so far into the forest.

“So much of what we lost, not just our house, but the forest, the animals, and the birds,” Ms Williams said. “It was quite vast so that was important.”

The forest is now completely different, with blackened trees everywhere, feral species such as deer, rats, and kikuyu appearing, and the river has changed, no longer edged by casuarinas.

“We have photographed and recorded plant species and native birds and animals reappearing, so it will be interesting to continue monitoring these observations over future years.”

Ms Ayliffe’s brother, Mark, was captain of the Cobargo RFS during the Black Summer bushfires. Tragically, he passed away last year.

She said the recording of his oral history provided considerable solace to his family.

The NLA event is free but registration is essential. The panel discussion will be livestreamed, but not the documentary.