Fires

After three episodes, I think that I am getting the message from Tony Ayres. Other reviews seem to miss the point. Very few people predicted what the fires were going to be like. We have always had bush fires in Australia. The RFS has fought them with a fair degree of success. What those fire fighters faced in 2019-20 was, to use the word of the year, "unprecedented".

The young fire fighters in the first episode were behaving like typical teenagers until they came face to face with the reality of surviving. I found this episode to be the best so far, not knowing whether or not they would survive.

The uncertainty of knowing where loved ones were and the loss of communication was the focus of the second program. I found this part a little too slow. I felt like I was living the experience in real time.

Property owners in the third part were typical of people who have been told how to prepare their homes in the event of a bush fire. As with the fires in Victoria a few years earlier, the fires were too intense for preparation to make any difference. I thought that the ending was not satisfying.

This series has exceeded my expectations. "The Newsreader" was a hard act to follow on Sunday nights but "Fires" has proved to be a worthy successor.

I came across this mini series by accident, and was immediately drawn into it.

If you are looking for a Hollywood blockbuster about saving lives, you'll be disappointed. If you are looking for a drama about how real people had to survive during devastating bush fires, and see how different people react to the situation, it looks like it's the perfect show.

Families freaking out, but trying to keep their kids calm Emotions flying all over the place People wanting to leave the community refuge centre to see if they still have a home Parents realising they'll be spending Christmas day amongst bush fires.

Kids wondering how Santa will get to them during the bushfires.

This show is raw and full of emotion. I felt the pain they felt.

I'm now looking forward to seeing the next episodes of this fantastic Australian drama.

I would not recommend watching this with a bowl of popcorn of chips, but a glass of water and some tissues.

As a former firefighter I was very curious in the portrayal of the 2019-20 'black summer' in this ABC mini series. I will state my bias at the beginning in that I love to support Australian film and I am not a fancy critic. I can however offer some insight on the firefighting side.

Cons -Melodramatic. Very melodramatic, but then it's not a documentary, it's a mini series and that's why we're watching it-a form of dark entertainment, to learn, see things from a different perspective.

-Range of acting abilities and some great cast members but also some developing ones.

-A couple of the episodes drag on with the thriller aspect.

-Some one dimensional character portrayal in a handful of characters.

Pros -This mini series gives a good idea of so many perspectives of the people. From the firefighters, to those who decided to stay back and fight, to the recovering addict waiting on his methadone to those who were down the coast for a holiday thinking the fires would burn themselves out.

-It gives good insight to the many competing priorities during emergencies, on the ground and in the emergency command offices. The stress (while at times overblown and magnified by the dramatic aspect) goes part of the way into conveying some of the fear felt by everyone involved.

-While it is melodramatic, some people in the review section have stated how ridiculous it is that some of the firefighters stopped and had a swim at the end of the day. I can state from experience that whether or not it's ridiculous, it happened at the start (some water points are too good to ignore and the end of the day does come). No one could predict the seriousness of the situation as the summer progressed.

-Young love does sometimes blossom like that shown in Mott and Tash (I'm living proof).

-Once you've witnessed a pyrocumulus in action, you know how totally out of control and minuscule we are to stop it. This mini series gives some insight to the bushfires of that horrendous year. Whether or not people accept the science, scenarios like this are becoming more frequent and more extreme.

I would love to see more film come out capturing the Australian spirit like that found in this show.

I was in two minds as to whether I really wanted to spend too much time on a disaster movie while we are still in the middle of a pandemic The first act of the kids on the beach showed how life was normal before disaster strikes. A not uncommon treatment used on movies like these However the situation that followed was not successful in portraying the obvious horror that ensured.

Maybe I'll give episode 2 a look but not impressed so far.

The show is quite good and the producers and writers have done a good job at capturing the chaos and drama around what happened in the fires so far. The only gripe I do have is that they got aspects of which service was involved and car regos right for Queensland, but when it came to anything about NSW they didn't do their research. The car regos were wrong and the service responsible for Bushfires is the NSWRFS. Other than that it is good.