“Oh God!” I saw a town burning at the foot of the mountains, the one where Meredene and I had gone shopping.

Kari stayed on the hilltop. I went down to Irene. She was up. “I know. The mountains are on fire. What will Meredene and her family and the old couple do?”

“They can come here. The motorway’s still open, someone will pick them up.”

“And the animals?”

I imagined one of the children driving the animals to us in the cove, and if the fire reached us, into the water. I could already hear the cows lowing and the pigs squealing and the chickens clucking. But nobody came, not the people from the farms and not the animals. I don’t know what became of them.

I was not worried about us. The boat was moored to the jetty, I filled the tank, and tried the engine, and it ran smoothly and reliably. I took a mattress out to the boat and made a bed in front of the helm and loaded food, lots of water, blankets. I stored all the towels and linen I could find in the house on the beach so that if the fire came I could soak them and protect the wooden roof structure, and windows. I brought everything we would need down to the old house as well. If the fire came we would go out onto the sea and wait until it was over. And then, presumably, if not into the upper house, we would at least be able to move back into the house on the beach.

In late afternoon, smoke drifted over the cove. Ash rained down, very light, very fine; it landed on our skin, and in the folds in our clothes, and on our teeth, leaving a bitter taste behind. I found my way up the mountain and squatted down next to Kari. Beneath a murky, yellow-gray sky the edge of the plain was in flames; the fire had managed to leap the motorway. The forest was burning gold-red, and sometimes, as if an invisible hand were reaching into the fire and hurling a flame, a tree or bush far beyond the fire line would burst into flames, followed by the surrounding grass.

“When will the fire get here?”

As if in answer to my question, the wind picked up. It stoked the fire, drove it forwards, and blew the black smoke up into a huge cloud, a growing monstrosity alive with embers and flame. At one point a fireball burst from the belly of the cloud, soared in an arc as if launched from a catapult, landed at the foot of the hill before us, and the trees burst into flames. Smoke and ash blew in our faces, sometimes with a whiff of eucalyptus, sometimes with an ember as well.