GREAT AUSTRALIAN BUSHFIRE STORIES

'the biggest cleared area was my vegetable patch ... I ran and lay down and made a little tent over myself. I thought it would preserve the last of the oxygen. Under the blanket I could hear explosions - the gas bottles from the houses further up and I could just imagine all my neighbours dead up the road. the wind was roaring the trees cracking: an awful lot of noise ... I thought I wasn't going to survive.' Peter Luke Gaffneys Creek Victoria 'the sky got darker again ... I started to think about the next day's newspaper headlines: Stupid thirty-eight-weeks pregnant woman drives into fire with toddler.' Sonia Stanton Canberra 'I looked down into where the houses were totally surrounded by a sea of flame and thought well that's it she's all over. Everybody will be killed down there.' John Hyles Namadgi Ranges GREAt AUStRALIAN BUSHFIRE StORIES is a collection of remarkable tales from all around Australia that tell of our country's fiercest natural phenomenon: the bushfire. Farmers landowners firefighters and city dwellers share with ABC journalist Ian Mannix their experiences of fires: preparing for them fighting them and the heartbreak task of mopping up when even their best efforts failed. Some stories are funny some tragic many courageous but all are a testimony to the ingenuity and grit of human beings as they fight to save their homes their towns and in some cases their lives.