'Currowan is the gripping account of the massive fire that engulfed the south coast of New South Wales in 2019–20. Ignited by a lightning strike near the Currowan state forest and burning for seventy-four days across nearly 500,000 hectares, it was among the largest and most ferocious infernos of Australia’s Black Summer.
'Journalist Bronwyn Adcock fled the fire with her children. Her husband, fighting at the front, rang with a plea for help before his phone went dead, leaving her to fear: will he make it out alive? In Currowan, Bronwyn tells her story, and those of many others: what they experienced, saw, thought and felt. The pacy, immersive reportage is braided with much larger themes – what we know about how fire behaves, how that is changing due to climate change, and how communities can cope with natural disaster and prepare themselves for an increasingly dangerous future.
'Currowan is about tragedy, survival and the power of community. It is the story of a fire, and of a nation in the grip of an intensifying crisis we must all work together to solve.'
Source : publisher's blurb
'Bronwyn Adcock provides a searing insider’s account of the bushfire that terrorised the NSW South Coast during Black Summer, and warns that fires on this scale will happen again.' (Introduction)
Live Recording : Bronwyn Adcock in Conversation
Michael Rowland
(interviewer),
2021
23474668
2021
single work
podcast
interview
'Michael Rowland chats with journalist Bronwyn Adcock about her book, Currowan.' (Production summary)
'In 2005, the CSIRO predicted that climate change would lead to catastrophic fires in south-eastern Australia by 2020. But rather than treating the climate crisis as “a question of science and how we prepare”, as journalist Bronwyn Adcock writes in Currowan: The story of a fire and a community during Australia’s worst summer, the Coalition politicised and trivialised it. In April 2019, following the brutal heatwave of the year before, retired emergency services leaders warned the government that it needed to prepare urgently for climate crisis-related extreme weather events. Prime Minister Scott Morrison refused to meet with them. By November, fires were burning across the land. Morrison assured a nation on edge that everything was under control. Tweeting a photo of himself with Australian cricketer Steve Smith, he told fire-affected communities that the cricketers would give them “something to cheer for”.' (Introduction)
'In 2005, the CSIRO predicted that climate change would lead to catastrophic fires in south-eastern Australia by 2020. But rather than treating the climate crisis as “a question of science and how we prepare”, as journalist Bronwyn Adcock writes in Currowan: The story of a fire and a community during Australia’s worst summer, the Coalition politicised and trivialised it. In April 2019, following the brutal heatwave of the year before, retired emergency services leaders warned the government that it needed to prepare urgently for climate crisis-related extreme weather events. Prime Minister Scott Morrison refused to meet with them. By November, fires were burning across the land. Morrison assured a nation on edge that everything was under control. Tweeting a photo of himself with Australian cricketer Steve Smith, he told fire-affected communities that the cricketers would give them “something to cheer for”.' (Introduction)
'Bronwyn Adcock provides a searing insider’s account of the bushfire that terrorised the NSW South Coast during Black Summer, and warns that fires on this scale will happen again.' (Introduction)
Live Recording : Bronwyn Adcock in Conversation
Michael Rowland
(interviewer),
2021
23474668
2021
single work
podcast
interview
'Michael Rowland chats with journalist Bronwyn Adcock about her book, Currowan.' (Production summary)
