Alpine Bushfires
Trav Ledger · 57 min
A volunteer firefighter from Wangaratta recounts two brutal nights on the 2019–20 Black Summer fire grounds — saving strangers' homes with everything he had, and learning to forgive himself for the ones he couldn't.
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Trav Ledger has been a volunteer firefighter with the Country Fire Authority for 13 years, based in a small rural brigade near Wangaratta in northeast Victoria. In that time, he'd fought plenty of small grass fires and local blazes, but nothing that tested him the way the Black Summer fires of 2019-20 would. On 30 December 2019, his strike team was called to Wowa, two hours north of their usual range. What started as a manageable fire moving down a hillside turned violent in minutes. Ember attack overwhelmed the crew, and they had to retreat fast. Hours later, they were diverted to the township of Kadjua, where houses were minutes from the fire front and resources were thin. Trav and his crew spent over an hour fighting to save their first house, jumping in and out of the truck as the fire intensified, sheltering behind the garage, putting out spot fires in the garden beds and a small toilet that kept catching fire. They believed they'd done everything they could. As they drove out at dawn, they saw the house had burned down after they left. It was the first house Trav had ever seen burn.
Days later, Trav agreed to lead his first strike team to Corryong, expecting a quiet shift. Instead, the fire turned toward the township and the iconic Towong racecourse. His crew protected the grandstand but lost more houses on the ridge. Back home, Trav moved through physical exhaustion into something harder: weeks of what-ifs and guilt. Through peer support debriefing and conversations with his crew, he came to understand that becoming emotionally invested in saving a house was natural, not a failure. He and his team had given their best. They could not do the impossible. What helped him most was talking about it, whether casual crew conversations or formal debriefs, letting the weight of it out rather than carrying it alone.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses grief & loss, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au • GriefLine: 1300 845 745 · griefline.org.au
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