Firestorm: Surviving the Tasmanian bushfire

by Jon Henley

The photographs stop you in your tracks. Five children and their grandmother sheltering under an old wooden jetty as the air around them burns a fierce orange. Seen around the world, these were the images from the heart of the inferno that showed the Tasmanian township of Dunalley fighting for survival.

On the morning of 4 January 2013, the people of Dunalley had watched with caution as a bush fire burned slowly on top of the hill. It was not an unusual occurrence – fires are a part of Australian life – and Dunalley had never been troubled before. They made their preparations, just in case. Even so, they had no idea what was about to hit them.

In the aftermath of the Inala Road fire, Jon Henley visited Dunalley. Minute by minute, he reconstructed what had happened – the residents, the emergency services … the moment the flames struck the first houses.

Firestorm explores what it means to live in a natural environment that has evolved to burn. Meteorologists and firefighters alike fear the growing ferocity of the fires it produces as Australia’s summers grow ever hotter. Scientific facts suggests that the Inala Road fire may have been just a hint of what is to come.

'Firestorm' is the story of the terrifying fire, and of the remarkable and resilient character of its inhabitants as they seek to raise their homes from the ashes.

But most of all, it is the story of the family under the jetty, clinging on as Dunalley burned.

57 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 25, 2013

Reviews

[Rosie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought California had the case for horrific fires. My heart goes out to all those affected and fighting these fast moving horrific fires...all of them! It was scary to learn all the details of how fires can travel. I had NO idea, wow. Highly recommend this book. Eye opening. Narration was good too.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short and sweet tales of surviving a terrible bush fire.

[Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review is provided as part of the coursework for the Masters of Education course at Charles Sturt University, Australia.

Firestorm by Jon Henley. (multimedia edition for ipad)
Video and photography by Laurence Topham.
Guardianshorts series, Guardian Books 2013.
Category: A digitally originated, multimodal hypermedia narrative (Unsworth, 2006).

The ‘long-form’ story is an emerging trend in digital publishing, often written by ‘entrepreneurial journalists’ and affiliated with news companies such as the New York Times, The Guardian, and other respected sources of fine news features and essay writing.

Curriculum suitability: Geography (NSW) Stage 5: Australian Geography: 5A1; 5A2; 5A3 (Issues in Australian environments). Students can learn about fire behaviour, the effect of firestorms on communities, and the history of fires in particular Australian landscapes. The chapter ‘Living in a flammable environment’ is a statement of fire management practices of indigenous Australians and suggests we take lessons from their knowledge and skills.

In terms of the appeal of reading a digital text, Merga (2014) suggests that ‘ebooks are more likely to appeal to students reading for information…where interactive links and options may provide further, welcome information.’

The story details the events in the small Tasmanian coastal town of Dunalley on Friday 4 January 2013. Firestorm features a combination of page styles similar to a magazine feature story. On some pages, text is sparsely overlaid on full-screen photos of excellent quality and artistic merit. Other pages are simply text on one page with a photo on the next. Across some double pages, photographs tell the story of the tragedy, without text.

There are eleven chapters and 128 pages, and the similarity to a print text is high. The platform is reliable and stable. Pages are turned by a swipe of the fingers, or by moving to the page as indicated on the page locator at the bottom of the screen. This navigable feature, suggests Szalavitz (2012), like the ‘method of loci’, helps us with spatial context and recalling location cues.

The reader can choose to open hyperlinked symbols (explained in a key at the start of the book) of biographical content or video, which are placed appropriately and unobtrusively throughout the story.

The motivation for reading this story may stem from a curiosity aroused by seeing images of people who escaped the firestorm, which were posted almost immediately after the event on social media.
Dramatic videos and sounds were also captured on the day by various people involved in rescues and fire-fighting using mobile phones.
‘Digital news is in the hands of everyone, not an elite few.’ (DVorkin, 2012). The publishers have thereby been provided with ideal material for extending the storytelling from a news item to a multimedia ebook experience, with the additions of biographical content of key characters and the dramatic photographs.

In referring to long-form journalism and storytelling, and the importance of social media in promoting it, DVorkin, (2012) states that ‘a new breed of voracious news consumer will simply discover it, consume it, talk about it, share it.’

The Guardian has made a sample web version of the story freely available (for sharing), but the GuardianShorts ebook has the full story content and a more holistic story experience.

Firestorm is a fine representation of non-fiction literature and meets Walsh’s (2013) definitions of what constitutes good literature. It is beautifully presented and any Australian, especially those who have experienced bushfires, would find the story interesting, emotional and compelling.

References

BOSTES Geography 7-10 Syllabus. (2003). Retrieved August 23, 2014, from BOSTES: http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/...

DVorkin, L. (2012, February 23). Inside Forbes: How Long-Form Journalism Is Finding Its Digital Audience. Retrieved August 23, 2014, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/lewisdvor...

Merga, M. K. (2014). Are teenagers really keen digital readers?: adolescent engagement in ebook reading and the relevance of pap books today. English in Australia, Volume 49, Number 1., 27-37.

Szalavitz, M. (2012, March 14). Do e-books make it harder to remember what you just read? Retrieved August 23, 2014, from Time: http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/14...

Walsh, M. (2013). Literature in a digital environment. In L. McDonald (Ed.), A Literature companion for teachers (pp. 181-194). Marrickville: Primary English Teachers Association of Australia.

[Jerryat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Firestorm is an example of non-fictional digital literature and tells the story of the devastating Tasmanian bushfires of Janiuary 2013 as witnessed primarily through the eyes of the Holmes family of Dunalley. The small coastal village of Dunalley was ravaged by the fires with many homes and community buildings destroyed. Having travelled through this part of Tasmania shortly after the fires I was drawn to this story. Driving through kilometre after kilometre of destroyed and burnt out wilderness, farmland and lost homes is a sombre experience and coupled with the personal recollections of the Holmes family this was a powerful story for me.
The work has been put together by The Guardian newspaper of the UK and the quality of it is self-evident. It combines video of the fires and destruction, interviews, audio and images. The story is split into six chapters which can be experienced in chronological order of the events or non-linearly via screen navigations.
There is clever editing and merging/overlaying of images, video, audio and text so the story unfolds across the different modes but in a tightly integrated and cohesive manner.
While the story contains professional footage it is a deeply personal story and this is reinforced and enhanced through the inclusion of images taken by the family (for example, with a mobile phone as they sheltered from the fires in the water under a small jetty. The combination of professional and amateur footage works really well together. The personal nature of the story makes a big difference (Jorstad, 2013).
The text overlays work very well too, providing additional and background information to the story. The text is very readable as it is scrolled down the left side of the background images. The text areas have had the background images darkened to make them more readable. The dark shading of the images adds to the overall feel of the story.
In addition to helping students engage and learn some important digital literacies (Tackvic, 2012) using multi-modal delivery, Firestorm also provides a lot of background information on the nature of bushfires and the role they play in the Australian environment, how fauna has adapted to fire and the important role it plays in its lifecycle. The work also considers the impact that global warming is having and just how precariously balanced the environment is.
An important ability for ebooks is that they really need to be playable across a number of devices as we tend to consume content more and more on our phones or tablets. I was able to experience Firestorm equally on my desktop and on an iPad without any difference in the overall experience.
This is not an interactive story in the sense that it is more of a narrative that is told/experienced using different delivery modes. There is no direct opportunity for interaction with other users/readers.
It is not easy to remix, add, edit or take parts of the story and use it somewhere else - it has been packaged as a single, integrated piece of content despite having been created from many discrete components.
As a journalistic work exploiting the affordances of the web there is naturally the ability to share the work with others via the usual social media channels (e.g. Twitter, Facebook).
In Summary, Firestorm for me is a very compelling work that exploits the features of a rich digital environment to deliver a moving story. It draws on personal experiences but also includes a lot of informative content as well. It is an example of how well some traditional media outlets have adapted to the Web and Web 2.0 technologies.


Guardian, The. (2013). Firestorm. Retrieved 20/8/2014, 2014, from http://www.theguardian.com/world/inte...

Jorstad, J. (2013). Digital storytelling -- changing people, perceptions, and lives. Retrieved 18/8/2014, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhJDU...

Tackvic, C. (2012). Digital Storytelling: Using Technology to Spark Creativity. The Educational Forum, 76(4), 426-429. doi: 10.1080/00131725.2012.707562

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Firestorm” by the Guardian is a digital journalistic piece that reports and gives anecdotal insight into the bushfires that swept through Dunally in Tasmania on the 3rd January 2013. It is a multi-modal account of the disaster, organised into chapters that are then divided into different subsets – providing audio, photographic and text accounts and information. This text may be considered useful as a tool in the Australian Studies course of a Foundation Program when introducing students, mostly international, to the impacts of natural disasters in Australia. The Australian Studies course aims to assist students to understand the physical geography of Australia and its impact upon Australian Society and culture - “Firestorm” provides an account of bushfires in Australia that achieves this.

Leacock & Nesbit (2007) suggest the content quality be accurate, have appropriate detail and a balanced presentation of ideas. In the “Firestorm” the interviews with the Holmes family and the story like nature of these helps give a personal perspective to the reporting of the event. In addition, the visual impact of colour footage and stills achieves visual support for the personal account and the gravity of the situation. The presentation design includes written text that provides background and additional information about the conditions as seen in Chapter 3, which further supports enhanced learning and aids efficiency in understanding (Leacock & Nesbit, 2007).

The account is accessible and engaging to many learners and viewers, the visual techniques are effective and the audio helpful – especially for second language learners who have a choice of skill set to access the knowledge on offer. Huang (2011) suggests that learning about social issues is greatly improved by the implementation of texts that consider a topic in different ways thus assisting students to gain “critical world literacy”. This then positions them to understand, consider and relate to issues and situations beyond their prior experience thus gaining insight.

Moreover, the success of this text is that it draws on the advantages of “immersive journalism” which aims to reinstitute the audience connection by engaging their emotional involvement. It is this “immersion” that helps the audience to gain an understanding of the facts of the story but also provides an opportunity to feel the emotions and thoughts of those interviewed (de la Pena et al, 2010). Immersion has long been considered a useful strategy in language acquisition and “immersive journalism” provides a relevant and current tool for interfacing with social issues and conditions within Australia.

This review was written for INF533, Literature in Digital Environments, as part of a Masters of Education.

References:

De la Peña, N., Weil, P., Llobera, J., Giannopoulos, E., Pomés, A., Spanlang, B., & ... Slater, M. (2010). Immersive Journalism: Immersive Virtual Reality for the First-Person Experience of News. Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments, 19(4), 291-301.

Huang, S. (2011). Reading Further and Beyond the Text : Student Perspectives of Critical Literacy in EFL Reading & Writing. Journal of Adolescent & Adult literacy, 55(2), 145-154.

Leacock, T. L. & Nesbit, J. C. (2007). A Framework for Evaluating the Quality of Multimedia Learning Resources. Educational Technology & Society, 10(2), 44-59.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read this in my Hobart house. 3km from the city centre. Every year icy air sinks off the beautifull mountain alongside. Soon a climate change driven fire will bomb this city with burning bark. The focus of everyone will be getting accross the water. Only a few will be protecting thier house. Here and there a house a block away from the city will catch fire then others alongside.