From The Embers Community Broadcasting Association of Australia

Melbourne became a ghost town during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pubs and venues closed their doors, leaving many of the city’s artists and creatives without a stage to perform on or an audience to perform for. Yet over successive lockdowns, it was the creative industries that kept communities strong, as we all adapted to unprecedented circumstances.  In The Stage Goes Dark, four creatives share their struggles and victories during the pandemic and cry out for an overlooked community, calling for a lifeline.

Four Emergency level bushfires burned over one weekend in Western Australia in February 2022. With roughly 30% of WA agricultural land, most farmers are prepared for fire at any time. But when one comes, they rely heavily on volunteer farmers and locals who form the  Bush Fire Brigade. On February 6, 2022 near the small farming town of Narrogin, extreme wind and heat, coupled with a powerline spark in a dry pasture paddock, resulted in a massive fire. Only one house was lost but the impact on livestock and farmland will affect farmers years into the future.

Day after day of intense rainfall fell across south east Queensland In February 2022, breaking riverbanks, swamping roads and flooding homes. The city of Brisbane experienced one of the worst floods on record. In three days alone, Brisbane received 80 per cent of its annual rainfall as people scrambled to find higher ground to shelter. As people recover and start to rebuild, questions are being raised over where to live and how to prepare for the future.

Ever increasing record high flood levels are marked on the side of Lismore’s flood levee.  Lismore, a town in Northern New South Wales is dissected by two major rivers. When there’s heavy rainfall, water flows down from the surrounding hills, slowing at the bottom and spreading across the floodplain.  The town’s residents know floods, their houses are built high, some four metres off the ground in the canopies of trees. Many have flood plans, keeping kayaks and dinghies tethered to their homes in case of emergency. On February 27 2022, water inundated the town, sweeping away cars, stranding residents on rooftops and filling houses with inches of mud. In the weeks that followed volunteer hubs sprang up to feed and clothe locals forced to shelter in tents and cars as they struggle to recover with minimal support and start to clean out and rebuild their homes in the trees.

One and a half million hectares of Yuin Country was destroyed by the 2019/2020 mega fires in the South Coast of New South Wales. These fires killed countless animals, plants and insect species - some of which are now on the brink of extinction. Many members of the South Coast Yuin Community call these mega fires, ‘Wrong Fire,’ fires that can’t be controlled and have the capacity to injure and kill. This type of fire is vastly different to Right Fire, often called Cultural Burning. Right Fire has been practised for thousands of years and has the capacity to heal and care for all.

The fires that tore through the South Coast of New South Wales in 2019/2020 hit towns on the coast and in the bush. Within the community, homes were lost, some experienced events that left them traumatised and all inhabited a devastated landscape. Animal habitats were also affected, and when both logging companies and urban developers began to encroach on the habitat of the critically endangered Swift Parrot, locals from the South Coast began to stand up and take action to save the home that this small bird needs in order to survive.