Name: Doris Chambers

Age: 70
Occupation during 1939: Child living on her parents’ dairy farm in Callignee.
Age at time of fire: 5
Location of interview: Inverloch

"I remember that one cousin was holding on to my dad’s arm saying, “Are we all going to get burnt up, Uncle Jim?”. He was really terrified."

I remember my Dad rushing around and getting us to go down to the swamp which was a little bushy, damp area not very far from the house. The next thing I remember about the fire is probably the smoke and the smell, and the feeling around you that everything has totally changed.

It was late afternoon. It was school holidays, and my Dad’s sister was visiting with her children. I remember that one cousin was holding on to my Dad’s arm saying, “Are we all going to get burnt up, Uncle Jim?”. He was really terrified.

We where were living at Callignee, about 15 or 20 miles south of Traralgon, just in the Streszleckis. I had two older brothers, one older sister and a younger sister too. We had a dairy farm, and it was a team effort when you had a farm like that with lots of clearing to be done and hand milking cows – it was before the days of machines. It was a totally different era; it’s hard to imagine it now.

The area around the back of our house was heavily timbered, there were so many trees. There was a glow in the sky and that smoky feeling, and of course it was terribly hot. We didn’t have too many clothes on. You had bare feet and all those things.

"As we were leaving I remember seeing trees burning on the edge of the property, and looking around and seeing a big wall of timber up on the hill and seeing that alight. I remember seeing fire all around us."

The next thing that is most vivid in my mind is rushing out of the house and going and sitting in the swamp and my Dad and probably those older cousins, putting wet bags on our shoulders. I remember a group of us sitting in this damp area. It was like the beginnings of a little creek and there were lots of ferns and heavy green undergrowth. We were sitting there in this mossy wet area and my Dad put these wet bags on my shoulders and was covering the rest of us with wet things.

Then my oldest cousin, he lived on a neighbouring farm and he was 20 years older than me, he came rushing in on his motorbike and said to my Dad, “The road is clear, come now”.

Where we were living you couldn’t actually see the main road. You had to drive up the hill quite a distance to  leave our house to get onto the main road that went from Traralgon to Balook. And you couldn’t really tell whether the road was open or where the fire was, because there was just smoke everywhere and visibility was so bad.

We had this old Ford, one of those old cars that used to have curtains on them, but there were no curtains on ours. And I can remember running up from the swamp to where the car was in this open garage and falling over the edge, not even taking time to open the door - all the kids just tumbling into the back seat and it was like “Quick, hurry!”

There was this big panic, we fell into the car and I remember driving up the hill and looking back at the house and thinking in my childlike way that there might be some miracle and that it might still be there when we got back.

As we were leaving I remember seeing trees burning on the edge of the property, and looking around and seeing a big wall of timber up on the hill and seeing that alight. I remember seeing fire all around us.

"I’ve still got friends who live in that area and I just think, ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that’. Every summer you would start to think, is this going to be the year ..."

I’ve still got friends who live in that area and I just think, “Oh, I couldn’t do that”. Every summer you would start to think, “Is this going to be the year?” And it’s really hard when you lose absolutely every thing and your photos. If your family don’t replace them, you’ve got nothing. It’s part of you, the fabric of your life, that’s been destroyed.

Well, it’s really strange to see all the living things that you had in that house, and they’re all in the same place, but they’re all black and buckled and twisted. You can just barely recognise them. They had iron beds and they were all twisted up and they were still there, and the oven had a square tin in it, with little black spots in the bottom of the tin which was the fruit in the fruit cake that my mother had had in the oven at the time.

"I remember being in my aunt's house and it being dark and all the kids lined up to sleep on the floor and looking out the windows and just seeing what looked like the lights of a city. There were just lights from the bushfires everywhere"

She made jam and pickles and all those sorts of things. There was a little cupboard that had all the pottery things and the jam jars in it and they were all just molten glass and all melted in together. It was, “Oh, look at this!” It was all just black and charred.

After that, we went to stay in Warragul with the aunt that had been with us that day. That first night, I remember being in my aunt's house and it being dark and all the kids lined up to sleep on the floor, and looking out the windows and seeing what looked like the lights of a city. There were just lights from the bushfires everywhere, burning trees and burning bits of timber through all the bushland and open farmlands, just these red things everywhere and everybody’s eyes were running with the smoke.

When we rushed from the house we had only what we stood up in. My mother had been in the swamp too, so you can imagine what she looked like. She needed some clean clothes. She was a much bigger size than my aunt, so when we went over there, she had no clothes that she could borrow. I remember her being embarrassed about going into town, into Traralgon to buy some clothes, and how she was going to look walking down the street.

But the next morning we did drive into town and the memory of that drive has lasted - just seeing all the dead animals in the farming district lying on the ground, all these singed animals with their feet in the air. You know it was such a tragic sight really - from the green bushland that you would have seen the day before to just driving through the country and seeing it like that; it leaves a lasting impression.

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Read more about the affects of trauma in Bruce Esplin's interview in the Aftermath Section