Devastation of bush fires told in song

A Mullingar musician visiting family in Sydney has written a song about the Australian bushfires.

Declan Colgan travelled Down Under six weeks ago to visit his brother and his family, who live 35 minutes outside of Sydney.

“There is complete devastation just 15 minutes away, the distance from Mullingar to Killucan, it’s difficult to comprehend,” said Declan.

“There is a lot of anger against the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison. Everybody is talking about it because he left to go on holidays to Hawaii. There is a lot of anger in Victoria, near Melbourne, where whole towns have just been wiped out.

“As I was flying in to Sydney, all you could see was hundreds of kilometres of land destroyed by the bushfires,” he continues.

“After a week of being here, the temperatures continued to climb. On the worst day it hit 48 or 50 degrees, and the humidity on top of that was unbearable. It’s just dead heat.

“What is the most incapacitating is the smoke. Usually I would go for a run every morning, but I couldn’t because the smoke is so intense, it burns your throat.

“When you look at the sky there is layer upon layer of smoke. Everyone has this image of Sydney and its famous Harbour Bridge, lush greenery and blue sky, but now when you look at the horizon all you can see is yellow smog. It’s been like that 90 percent of the time I’ve been here.”

Declan’s brother and family live in Kellyville, about 35 minutes outside Sydney. Bushfires raged “just up the road” but the family have not had to evacuate.

“But elsewhere, not far from here, the fires are just ongoing, people who have lived here all their lives say they have never experienced anything like it before,” said Declan.

“Everything is tinder dry; bark is peeling off trees, the grass is like dust. There are water restrictions and the phone service is out because the cell tower was knocked out in the Blue Mountains.

“When you walk outside you can feel the heat coming off the ground and there is no air. It takes nothing for a bushfire to take off. The wind will send little sparks flying and a new blaze will be set off kilometres away.”

Declan says the only way to beat the heat and the smog is to stay indoors. “Even with all the shutters pulled and the aircon on full blast, the heat is unbearable. It’s so bad that they are letting children into the swimming pools for free because people need to cool down.

Declan wrote a song called ‘I’m On Fire’ to try and put the devastation into words. It has since had over a million views on social media, and Channel 7 News in Australia contacted him about using the song.

“The reason I wrote it is I’ve never experienced anything like this before. I’ve had Australians who I’ve never met before get in contact from all over Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Cairns, thanking me for putting their feelings into words. Everything has been completely destroyed, wildlife, nature reserves, people’s home, their lives are destroyed. And I needed to find a way to express that in words.”

Speaking on Monday, Declan said his family had welcome respite from the heat, after a thunderstorm brought “the first rain I’ve seen in six weeks”. It will offer a brief respite to the firefighters and emergency services, who are working around the clock to beat this and help people.”