Jill Graham · 27 min
When Australia's Black Summer fires threatened to swallow two Alpine valleys, it was a neighbourhood centre manager, fielding panicked calls, worrying about her son three days incommunicado, and rallying her community, who held the fraying edges together.
Hear this story
When the Black Summer fires swept toward the Alpine valleys in late 2019, Jill Graham was managing two neighbourhood centres while fielding panicked calls from people who had no idea what to do. The Ovens Valley and King Valley weren't directly hit, but fire was close enough that evacuation warnings sent people in different directions, some to places that turned out to be just as dangerous. Jill spent days deciding what to pack from the centres themselves, moving between locations, watching smoke cloud the valleys, and listening to people ask if they could drop their possessions at the centre because their utes were full. She learned at a community meeting in Moyu that strike teams were stretched so thin they couldn't help if fire reached the town. That meant the elderly residents who weren't on Facebook wouldn't hear the news at all.
While managing the chaos on the ground, Jill's son Peter was managing a caravan park near Batemans Bay with 17 women and children still there as the fire came down. When he told her the fire was about to reach them, the line cut. She didn't hear from him for three days.
Since then, Jill has worked on two major projects to close the gap between official emergency plans and what community groups can actually do in those first 72 hours when services are stretched thin. She's learned that people don't always ask for help directly, and that telling your story, even the hard parts, matters for recovery. Her advice to people still carrying fire trauma is simple: talk to family, friends, or strangers, because bottling it up only compounds the next disaster.
“we find that if people are fire ready or disaster ready they're more likely to recover a lot better from a disaster”
“I remember standing there thinking what about all these elderly people in town people that don't have Facebook how do we get that message out to people like it really frightened me that this could happen”
“it can take up to five years for people and not everybody deals with it people just shelve it and don't deal with these problems and it may come out in different ways that you don't realize that are connected to the trauma they've been through”
The hero, today
People caught in bushfire zones need clear, timely information from emergency services, but the real gap is between official plans and what community groups can actually do in the first 72 hours. Jill has learned that vulnerable people often don't ask for help directly; they come in with a question about a course and you have to listen underneath it to find out what they really need. Telling your story about what you lived through, even the hard parts, is itself a form of healing that bottling it up will never be. Building community readiness for the next disaster means connecting local groups so that when services are stretched thin, someone has a generator to get to the person on oxygen.
Yes. Jill Graham is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
People caught in bushfire zones need clear, timely information from emergency services, but the real gap is between official plans and what community groups can actually do in the first 72 hours.
Jill has learned that vulnerable people often don't ask for help directly; they come in with a question about a course and you have to listen underneath it to find out what they really need.
Telling your story about what you lived through, even the hard parts, is itself a form of healing that bottling it up will never be.
Building community readiness for the next disaster means connecting local groups so that when services are stretched thin, someone has a generator to get to the person on oxygen.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 00:04
Welcome to the Kansuki Heroes Podcast special Alpine Bushfires series, where we share inspirational stories of everyday people from the Victorian Alpine region who went through the bushfires which occurred from late 2019 through to early 2020. These stories highlight the different challenges and events people went through and how they overcame them. Please be aware that the story you're about to hear may have moments of deeply felt emotions and personal experiences. If anything you hear has a triggering effect, please reach out to someone who can help you. If you love this conversation, please like and share it with your friends so we can continue to share more inspiration and hope to as many people as possible. Now listen up for our next hero's story. In this episode of the Superheroes Alpine Special.
Jill Graham (Guest) · 01:00
I spoke with Jill Graham, who's manager of the Myrtleford Neighbourhood Centre and also the Moyu Neighbourhood Centre. Kansuki Heroes have partnered with the Myrtleford Neighbourhood Centre to record the real-life stories of people who were impacted by or involved in supporting the community through the Black Summer Fires as part of the Bushfire Recovery Project. Jill's passion for giving back to the local community comes through strongly in her story. She shares about the widespread confusion that arose in the community about what to do and where to go as the Black Summer bushfires increasingly took a hold in the Alpine region. Jill also shares the emotional heartache as members of her own family took on key high-risk roles to fight the fires and protect their local community. Jill's story left me feeling a strong appreciation for people like her and the key role they play in supporting our local communities. So please sit back as you watch or listen to Jill's story. Okay, good morning, Jill. So great to have you here on Father's Day, on a Sunday morning. But I really appreciate you taking the time to share your story. So what I want to do is hand over the microphone to you because this is all about you and your story. Particularly with regard to the Black Summer bushfires. Why don't you take us back to where your story begins, set the scene for us and just talk us through.
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This conversation includes two valleys caught between warnings, what do we pack when we don't know if we're leaving, the community meeting that said no one's coming, trapped in a valley as the fire comes down, the 72-hour gap where community groups could help and preparing for what will happen again.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 02:30
Okay. Well, I'm talking from two valleys. We've got the Ovens Valley and the King Valley, which run parallel to each other. They were both affected, probably not directly impacted, but there was fire close by and there was the potential danger. I remember being in Myrtleford and people were coming into the neighbourhood centre and wanting to know what to do. They were getting all the messages, the warnings and that of what they could do, and we were getting lots of evacuation warnings, but people just weren't sure of what to do. I was in that situation where I didn't know whether to to flee or to stay put. I remember sitting in Myrtleford thinking, "Okay, this could be potentially dangerous. What are we going to take from the centre?" Not having been faced with this, because in 2009 I actually started the job within a few days of the 2009 bushfires in Myrtleford, which actually claimed lives. That was the same as the Black Saturday down at Kinglake and Marysville and that. So I hadn't really been in that position and I'm sitting there thinking, well, how do we cope with this? What do we need to pack up? How do we need to minimise the risks to our neighbourhood centre? In King Valley, I had a similar thing and I remember going over to the Men's Shed taking photos of all the equipment. And after hours of deliberation, and I suppose in a little bit of like— and I was unsure what to do, and, and a little bit of panic too, because if it did come through in a hurry, we wouldn't have much time. I realized that all we needed to do was take the server and the, the backup hard drive out. You know, after all that, you know, I, I think I had days of deliberation. What the heck do I do? Anyway, going backwards and forwards between both centres, we were getting evacuation messages coming over the radio and people in Myrtleford, some went to Wodonga, some went to Wangaratta. Unfortunately, the ones that went to Wodonga, a bushfire broke out near where they were at the barracks. So it became a little bit dangerous. A lot of people did go into Wangaratta, especially those that were a bit vulnerable. Were unsure because the problems with the fires around Myrtleford-Bright was that they were up in the hills and if they did get away, especially at Mount Buffalo, it would come down the valley. So we were clouded in smoke, people not knowing what to do and there was quite a bit of panic. People were ringing up and saying, "Look, we've packed our utes up but we've got no more room. Can we drop stuff at the neighbourhood centre?" It was just a little bit of chaos, I think, because people weren't sure what to do. Here in Moyu, in the King Valley, I remember— I don't know what they're called now, the Department of Forestry or whatever. They've changed their name recently. I just can't think of it at the moment. They apparently held a community meeting here in Moyu, and I didn't know about it. My daughter rang me from Wolgarah and said, "Mum, are you going to the community meeting?" I said, "What meeting?" She said, "Oh, there's one at 10 o'clock." So I went down to the fire shed and there were about a handful of people turned up. They turned around and told us that because all the strike teams were so stretched, that if the fire came to Moyu, they couldn't do anything to help us. So we all had to make that decision whether we were going to get out or not. I remember standing there thinking, What about all these elderly people in town, people that don't have Facebook? How do we get that message out to people? It really frightened me that this could happen. I spoke to a few neighbours and we tried to get a bit of the word out, but we still wouldn't have got around the town. The town's probably got 350 people in the town, but the majority of them would have been elderly, so they're not Facebook people. One minute you think, oh well, we'll be right, we've got the CFA to look after us, and the next minute you're on your own. So, you know, that was all sort of a bit worrying. We were covered in smoke for weeks, and I think that the information that got out from the Vic emergency services wasn't as clear as what it could have been, and people had no idea what to do. At one stage, the road was cut between Wangaratta and Moyu, so people couldn't go either way. They were sort of trapped in the valley. Once you're trapped in the valley, and it's the same with Myrtleford, if you're trapped in the valley, how do you get out as the fire comes down? Now, in Myrtleford, there was a lot of, not chaos, but what they did, they actually had the Metropolitan fire brigade come up to protect Bright, and then they got the police, Metropolitan Police up. But the Metropolitan Police were trying to stop people going through, but they were stopping the people that needed to get through. I was talking to a consultant we've been working with, and he said the head of the police in Bright couldn't get back up there because they wouldn't let the person through. And they got pretty annoyed with it all. I think the media played a big part in all this and made it— I suppose people were just really— just had no idea what to expect. I think that's a big part of what happens with these sort of things. Even though we weren't directly impacted, I think we all were sitting there watching our TVs, listening to the radio, And to me it was like Australia was on fire. It was, it was everywhere. So, and we were, we were sort of on the, on the fringe of it.
Jill Graham (Guest) · 08:54
It's a classic question. There's a, as someone who lives in the suburban area, there's still a focus on planning for fire.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 09:02
Yeah.
Jill Graham (Guest) · 09:02
And it seems to be ever increasing, but the impression that you're giving is that the And, and built up by the media, there's increasing awareness, but people didn't— were they sure what to do? Like, they, they were contacting you that the neighbourhood centres, but, but did you have your own plan around that? Was, was there sufficient planning in place for the Murtafa Day Boot Centre, for the community in, in general, to know what to do in the case of a bushfire?
Aveline Clark (Host) · 09:34
No. No, there definitely wasn't. And this is why since then we've been involved in a couple of projects. The first one went over 2 years called Enabling Communities, and unfortunately it came at a bad time where we couldn't consult with our community. But we could see the importance that we had to bring community groups and that on board to get their own plan because there's that gap in time, that 72 hours where it takes for the services to get in place. Where community groups could be helping other people, especially vulnerable people. So we did 2 years of working on that, and the most recent project we're working on currently is the Disaster Resilient Future Ready project. We have connected this year with a dozen, I suppose, the stronger community groups in the town and started to bring them together to see what is it We want it community-driven because this is where it all fell in a hole. I spoke with the Alpine Shire emergency person, management person, soon after the bushfires, and she said the problem that the Alpine Shire has is they don't have that connection on the ground with the community. They can do their emergency plan, but we need to have the community on board. And look, from my experience with fires, we had 2006-2007 fires here and people want to get out and help. They need to do something. They can't just sit back with the smoke, you know, billowing around their ears. They need to be part of it. So with what we're trying to work on, people will be able to— they're not going to take over what the services do. They're going to have their own plan so that if, you know, someone down the road is on oxygen and all of a sudden the power's cut off, they can get a generator to that person. Until help comes in. You've got all your services clubs that have got barbecues, generators, all sorts of things that can help. So that's what we're planning to do because we find that if people are fire ready or disaster ready, they're more likely to recover a lot better from a disaster. Now, at our last get-together, we actually had a scenario, and we're going to have a few scenarios where the fella from SES— and this might not fit in with what we're talking about, but he did a scenario on earthquakes. So he said at quarter to 3 on a Thursday afternoon, Myrtleford experienced an earthquake. Now, he didn't say how bad it was, but he went through everything that could have gone wrong. And one of the things that really stood out was it was school pickup time. Parents were going to panic. 'Oh my goodness, I've got to get to my children.' There's going to be hundreds of cars, you know, converge on the school. So there was so many things came into that, and I could see where that related to fires as well. So we, you know, we need to prepare our community for what's going to happen again, because it may not happen this year, but we've had a lot of rain, we've got a lot of undergrowth, and it's bound to happen.
Jill Graham (Guest) · 12:50
Yeah, I heard on the news yesterday that there's a lot of areas in Australia now who are in heading back into drought. And the, as you said, the risk of bushfires is, is, is increasing. In your view, is areas like your area down there through, uh, uh, around Myrtleford now better able to handle the situation than what they were in 2019 and '20?
Aveline Clark (Host) · 13:15
They would be a bit better able to handle it, but I still think there's a lot of work to do. Okay. The Alpine Shire, maybe, you know, I'm presuming they keep improving their emergency response, but we still need to do a lot of work with the community, 'cause that's, from my perspective, that's where I saw a lot of the panic and people getting quite nervous.
Jill Graham (Guest) · 13:41
Sorry for the interruption. This is Ian Westmoreland, the founder of Katsuki Heroes, and thank you for listening to this story from one of our amazing heroes. Our mission is for these stories to provide hope and inspiration to people experiencing life challenges and to also educate the broader community on how best to provide support. If you would like to help us to continue to produce more hero stories and cover more adversity themes, we would welcome all donations. These can be made via our website, kintsugiheroes.com.au. The donate function is at the bottom of the home page. We'd also welcome any feedback. You can email me direct using ian@kintsugiheroes.com.au. Now let's get back to the story. Can I take you back again to the 2019 and '20 fires, and I know that you had some of your family directly involved in the fires, and we previously heard the amazing story of, of Trav Ledger, your son-in-law, and, and there may be others in your family. What were your feelings around that, knowing that people close to you were working at the fire front? And, uh, how did you feel and, and how did you cope?
Aveline Clark (Host) · 14:58
Oh, it was very frightening and not being able to do anything because I remember talking to my son Peter, who was at Nelligan, just out of Batemans Bay. He was managing a caravan park up there and they evacuated most of the people there, but there were 17 women and children left there and there was him and another fellow that were looking after them and the fire came came right up to where they were, and I was on the phone to him, and all of a sudden he said, 'I've got to go, the fire's about to come over us,' and communication was cut. And it was like, 'Oh my goodness, what do I do?' And I've got other members of my family yelling at me, 'Mum, do something.' I mean, I can't. I couldn't even get there to help. So we didn't hear from him for about 3 days. To know whether he was okay or not. And he is still suffering from the trauma he went through back then.
Jill Graham (Guest) · 16:00
Wow. I was going to ask a question about, do you see evidence of trauma going back to the fires? And clearly with your, uh, with your son, you've seen that. What about in the local community? Do you see evidence of unaddressed or unidentified trauma going back to the—
Aveline Clark (Host) · 16:21
Yes, definitely. It's not just the 2019, 2020 fires. They've experienced this before in Myrtleford. This goes back, you know, 2009, which was a pretty bad fire, and it would go back over many years. People are really struggling with it all. And after talking to Rob Gordon, he says that it can take up to 5 years for people, and not everybody deals with it. People just shelve it and don't deal with these— the problems. And it may come out in different ways that you don't realize that are connected to the trauma they've been through. And I'm noticing we've got One of our staff is struggling a bit at the moment.
Jill Graham (Guest) · 17:11
For the audience, Jill and myself are partnering in a project as part of the Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Project to try and do our bit to help with the recovery. Jill, how do you see that going and do you see any evidence or what are you what are your hopes from this project will be able to achieve?
Aveline Clark (Host) · 17:37
Well, I've never known, and correct me if I'm wrong, for anyone to have ever gathered that evidence and had photos and podcasts and that of what really happened. Because I think we really need— I think people that have been involved in telling their stories, it's actually really good for their recovery as well. I know with Trav, with what you've done there, He buries a lot of stuff and it would have been really good. Even Brooke said to me she's surprised that he did it, but it would have done him the world of good because he's been through a lot of trauma in his life and I know this really affected him. So I think this is great that people of Myrtleford— and I've spoken to a few people only recently that said, oh, we would have told our stories.
Jill Graham (Guest) · 18:26
No, no, I'm thinking, oh, So we're laughing because I guess it's one of the lessons that we've seen from this exercise is that sometimes it's very difficult for people who are experiencing trauma to actually come out and share their story. But it's great that people like Trav did. So what about some of the things that you've seen in the community that have helped with the recovery? What are some of the good things that have been done that you've seen help people?
Aveline Clark (Host) · 18:56
Well, it's been really hard because COVID really knocked that out of the ballpark. We were talking about it the other day, we're finding people still struggling to get out and mix socially even now. I think it was just the bushfires happened, people didn't get time to talk about it, to get out because we were locked down pretty much. On and off for 2 years. I think this has compounded the problem, and I think there's going to be a lot of stuff who will still come out of the woodwork. We're trying to get people together, but it's been really hard. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the future.
Jill Graham (Guest) · 19:43
I remember in Trav's story, after they had attempted to save a number of houses and other buildings in the area that he was sent to, Few days later, they went back and met the locals. They had a beer with them at the pub, and he describes just how, how healing that experience was. And I guess lots of appreciation from the local community. So it seems to be this, just getting people together over, it doesn't have to be a beer, but a beer or just something that gets the community together and start talking.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 20:16
I know that, um, in Myrtleford in the January, we'd actually planned to have some children's activities. We decided after the bushfires, well, COVID hadn't surfaced then, we would go ahead with it. We had probably half a dozen individual days. We might have had a Lego day, tie-dye, face painting, all these things. People from Myrtleford and surrounding districts, and mainly grandparents brought along grandchildren, and their comments were, "We have been locked up for so long." surrounded by smoke, it is so nice to get out and talk to people. They were talking to each other, the adults, and the kids were having a great time. I remember standing there and thinking, "I'm so glad we went ahead with this," not knowing that before long, this wasn't going to happen for a long time, but we at least gave some people that bit of a reprieve. They weren't just all from Myrtleford, there was surrounding districts. So we were inundated with kids and grandparents and mums and dads just needing to get out and talk to other people. That was probably the best thing that I saw come out of that.
Jill Graham (Guest) · 21:30
Now, can I ask you a more personal question? So you're running a neighbourhood centre. Now, to me, it sounds like a pretty tough job, and obviously bushfires is one of the things that brings that. What made you decide that you wanted to do a role like that within the community? Why do you do what you do?
Aveline Clark (Host) · 21:49
To help people. To help empower people. Because there's so many people out there that won't ask for help, and they don't always come into the center, you know, straight out looking for help. They may have that, what I call, a hidden agenda. They may come in and say, "What courses have you got running?" you know, as you get to know that person and build up that relationship, you realize that they're, they're looking for help of some sort. And it may, may, could be anything, um, but we've helped a lot of people. And I think that's part of the job that I really like, is someone walking out that door feeling a lot better than when they walked in. And knowing that you've helped someone, um, is the best feeling. Now, I get bogged down with paperwork, but Every day, when I close that door, I think I've met someone great. It might be they're in terrible circumstances, but I've been able to sit and listen to them. That's the part of the job I really like.
Jill Graham (Guest) · 22:52
What are some of the main services as a neighbourhood centre that you provide to the community?
Aveline Clark (Host) · 22:58
Well, since the fires, we've gone into food relief, and that's been invaluable because with COVID and that, we were doing COVID farm drop-offs. People that couldn't— had no one to help them out. We provide any sort of anything that anyone wants. If people come in and they need financial counseling or whatever, we can refer them. We've had people that have been getting evicted from their homes, and we've managed to get Legal Aid in to help them. We did hundreds and hundreds of COVID vaccination certificates for people in Myrtleford. Now, that was a pretty hard job because we had 6 of us at computers working from 9 till 4 o'clock, and people would come in and expect you to press a button and their certificate would pop out. They didn't realise that you had to have a myGov account, you had to have an email address, and usually a smartphone. Now, most people didn't have that, so it was really hard setting them up, but we did so many because people at one stage couldn't go anywhere without their proof of vaccination. So that was probably one of the biggest things we've ever done, and we were asked by the local doctor's surgery to help out there initially because they couldn't cope with the demand. People might just come in and, you know, their phone, they mightn't understand their phone, or they There might be some little thing with their computer. Doesn't matter what it is, it's just a free service, just helping people.
Jill Graham (Guest) · 24:31
I love that, and it resonates with me, and I can see by the look on your face it clearly resonates with you. You're someone who obviously loves what you're doing and helping, giving back to the community. Jill, a final question. If there's people out there who are still experiencing trauma,, from the fires, um, and they've heard your story, what advice would you give to these, these people who may be listening, watching, or, or, uh, reading this?
Aveline Clark (Host) · 25:00
Well, I think they need to talk about it. They need to talk about it with family and friends, or, you know, come in, even someone they don't know. They need to talk about it. They don't need to bottle it up. I, I've seen people that, especially since COVID have just thought really, you know, drawn back into themselves. And it's not going to do them any good to keep it bottled up. It doesn't matter who it is they talk to, they need to get out and talk about it and get it out, because otherwise, you know, it's just going to build up. And then when the next disaster comes along, it's just going to compound it. So that would be my advice.
Jill Graham (Guest) · 25:36
I remember in one of the stories, uh, someone, they saw an open fire in winter. They couldn't light the fire in winter because it would bring back— it would trigger trauma. And it just— which is, which is awful. Um, Jill, I want to thank you so much for sharing your insight, uh, a powerful story of giving back and supporting your local community. And I guess on behalf of other Australians, and particularly our city folk, I just want to thank you for, for what you do in your area. I, I love the Alpine region, and it's just such a beautiful country there with beautiful people. So thank you very much for sharing.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 26:16
No, you're welcome. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Kintsugi Heroes with the Alpine Bushfires Special Series. Please like and share the show to your friends so we can get this out to even more people. If you have a story you'd like to share with us, please reach out using the contact details below. And join us for our next hero's story. Until then, keep being you, and remember that we are all heroes in our own unique way.
Jill Graham (Guest) · 26:52
Only when it's broken.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 26:57
Only when it's broken. When it hits you in the middle of the night and the truth burns so bright, only when it's broken, only when it's broken. Take pride in those cries, it's only for tonight, and then you You rise only when you're broken.
Jill Graham (Guest) · 27:31
Only when you're broken. Only when you're broken.
You don't have to be in crisis to call.
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