In 2020, the first series of From the Embers premiered, focusing on communities across Australia who had faced fire and smoke and homes destroyed in what was one of the most difficult summers has ever seen, the 2019-20 bushfire season.
In 2022, From the Embers 2: Phoenix returns to several places featured in the first series, including Mallacoota, Kangaroo Island, and the forests of the Far north of New South Wales to explore how communities are recovering from the fires and the issues that stem from trauma and isolation, coupled with the strength gained when so much is lost.
This series will also visit new communities who are recovering from floods and seemingly never ending COVID lockdowns.
Created in partnership with community radio stations, and the generous support of the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas, Paul Ramsay Foundation, The Minderoo Foundation Fire and Flood Resilience Initiative, and the Monash University's Fire To Flourish program.
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In 2020, the first series of From the Embers premiered, focusing on communities across Australia who had faced fire and smoke and homes destroyed in what was one of the most difficult summers has ever seen, the 2019-20 bushfire season.
In 2022, From the Embers 2: Phoenix returns to several places featured in the first series, including Mallacoota, Kangaroo Island, and the forests of the Far north of New South Wales to explore how communities are recovering from the fires and the issues that stem from trauma and isolation, coupled with the strength gained when so much is lost.
This series will also visit new communities who are recovering from floods and seemingly never ending COVID lockdowns.
Created in partnership with community radio stations, and the generous support of the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas, Paul Ramsay Foundation, The Minderoo Foundation Fire and Flood Resilience Initiative, and the Monash University's Fire To Flourish program.
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.
Two years on from the massive fire that tore through Mallacoota, a tiny coastal town in Victoria, the camping grounds are full again, koalas can be spotted in the crowns of eucalypts and the landscape is green with epicormic growth. But the town is dotted with empty lots where houses once stood and the new green growth only hides the blackened trunks. Photojournalist Rachel Mounsey documented the approach of the bushfire and the aftermath, focusing her camera on the people who lost their homes amidst the devastation.
Residents in Lobethal fled their homes for safety in December 2019, as the Cudlee Creek fire destroyed 85 homes in over 10 days. As the recovery rolled-out, the pandemic crept in - isolating people and leaving those who’d lost their homes feeling isolated and forgotten.
Lightning storms and fire are considered a part of life on Kangaroo Island. But the firestorms that blasted across the landscape in January 2020 were unlike anything ever seen before, and forbode of a changing climate. Two years on following COVID lockdowns and with tourist numbers climbing back up, birds and mammals are only just starting to return to fire-ravaged habitats, and a question looms over the community - what will come when the fire siren rings again? A content warning and a heads up for bush fire affected listeners - this feature contains stories from the 2019/2020 Fires.
First, the road closed. Then on the morning of New Year’s Day, night came and the skies turned red. Images from the coastal town of Mallacoota went viral as thousands of people sheltered on the wharf, the beach and in the caravan park that overlooks the lake. And during that time, the community radio station, helmed by Francesca Winterson played on…until they couldn’t.
Kangaroo Island is the oldest bee sanctuary in the world and home to one of the last disease-free koala populations in Australia. At the end of 2019 two lightning strikes caused devastation.
Early in the bushfire season, the town of Mongarlowe was encircled by flames and cut off from outside support. the town spawned a grass roots firefighting collective to assist the local Rural Fire Services Brigade - the Mongarlowe Mosquito Army.
The impact of Australia’s recent fire season on wildlife has been devastating. So what happens to the animals too injured to survive in the wild and how are we helping bring life back to the burnt forests?
Five radio presenters working across two regions share their experience of the recent summer of fire and what happened when one region’s transmitter went down.
Premiering on Tuesday 28th April, the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia's documentary series From the Embers takes listeners to the very heart of nine communities affected by the recent bushfire crisis.
In 2020, the first series of From the Embers premiered, focusing on communities across Australia who had faced fire and smoke and homes destroyed in what was one of the most difficult summers has ever seen, the 2019-20 bushfire season.
In 2022, From the Embers 2: Phoenix returns to several places featured in the first series, including Mallacoota, Kangaroo Island, and the forests of the Far north of New South Wales to explore how communities are recovering from the fires and the issues that stem from trauma and isolation, coupled with the strength gained when so much is lost.
This series will also visit new communities who are recovering from floods and seemingly never ending COVID lockdowns.
Created in partnership with community radio stations, and the generous support of the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas, Paul Ramsay Foundation, The Minderoo Foundation Fire and Flood Resilience Initiative, and the Monash University's Fire To Flourish program.
