Summary

Letter sent to friends of John and Zelma Gartner describing their experience through Ash Wednesday and the loss of their house and its contents in Mt. Macedon. The small community of Mt Macedon, northwest of Melbourne, was engulfed by bushfire on the night of 16 February, when a late wind change directed the fire from East Trentham up onto the mountain. 7 people died and 628 buildings were destroyed in East Trentham and Mt Macedon. John and Zelma Gartner survived the fire by taking refuge in their swimming pool while their house burned around them. This letter was written just over two months after the fire and sent to a number of friends locally and overseas.

John and Zelma wrote, 'We dressed on the run ... This took no longer than two minutes from the time the fire struck to the time we ran down the back stairs but it was already too late to get out of the house. ... We wrapped ourselves as well as possible and ran through about 40 yards of fire all round and above us and jumped into our swimming pool. ... [W]e stood face to face, pulled the blankets over us and hunched down as low as possible as the fire and debris was falling all over us. John said we would not die in the fire but Zelma thought we might suffocate.' They go on to describe the total loss of their house and significant private collections, the immediate aftermath, the difficulties they have faced and their determination to keep going.

Physical Description

4-page typed letter on cream stock with a colophon on the first page of a capital 'G' surrounded by 4 roses. The final page is hand-signed by John and Zelma Gartner.

Significance

The Ash Wednesday bushfires of February 1983 were one of Australia's greatest natural disasters as fires swept through Victoria and South Australia. In the space of a single day in Victoria, 47 people were killed and nearly 3000 homes and other buildings destroyed.

This interview, conducted 28 years after the fire, is a rare first-hand and detailed account of what happened to a couple in one of the areas most affected by Ash Wednesday. It helps to convey the trauma of the fire, the enormity of the loss and the difficulties of the recovery process and provides an historical connection to the experiences of people on Black Saturday and in other major bushfires.

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