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Currowan: a Story of Fire and a Community During Australia's Worst Summer
A moving insider’s account of surviving one of Australia’s worst bushfires – and how we live with fire in a climate-changed world
The gripping, deeply moving account of a terrifying fire – among the most ferocious Australia has ever seen
The Currowan fire – ignited by a lightning strike in a remote forest and growing to engulf the New South Wales South Coast – was one of the most terrifying episodes of Australia’s Black Summer. It burnt for seventy-four days, consuming nearly 5000 square kilometres of land, destroying well over 500 homes and leaving many people shattered.
Bronwyn Adcock fled the inferno with her children. Her husband, fighting at the front, rang with a plea for help before his phone went dead, leaving her to fear: will he make it out alive?
In Currowan, Bronwyn tells her story and those of many others – what they saw, thought and felt as they battled a blaze of never-before-seen intensity. In the aftermath, there were questions: why were resources so few that many faced the flames alone? Why was there back-burning on a day of extreme fire danger? Why weren’t we better prepared?
Currowan is a portrait of tragedy, survival and the power of community. Set against the backdrop of a nation in the grip of an intensifying crisis, this immersive account of a region facing disaster is a powerful glimpse into a new, more dangerous world – and how we build resilience.
The gripping, deeply moving account of a terrifying fire – among the most ferocious Australia has ever seen
The Currowan fire – ignited by a lightning strike in a remote forest and growing to engulf the New South Wales South Coast – was one of the most terrifying episodes of Australia’s Black Summer. It burnt for seventy-four days, consuming nearly 5000 square kilometres of land, destroying well over 500 homes and leaving many people shattered.
Bronwyn Adcock fled the inferno with her children. Her husband, fighting at the front, rang with a plea for help before his phone went dead, leaving her to fear: will he make it out alive?
In Currowan, Bronwyn tells her story and those of many others – what they saw, thought and felt as they battled a blaze of never-before-seen intensity. In the aftermath, there were questions: why were resources so few that many faced the flames alone? Why was there back-burning on a day of extreme fire danger? Why weren’t we better prepared?
Currowan is a portrait of tragedy, survival and the power of community. Set against the backdrop of a nation in the grip of an intensifying crisis, this immersive account of a region facing disaster is a powerful glimpse into a new, more dangerous world – and how we build resilience.
- GenresNonfiction
304 pages, Paperback
Published September 20, 2021
11 people are currently reading
127 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
December 4, 2023
Well written account of the devastating bushfires on the New South Wales (Australia) South Coast in the ‘Black Summer’ of 2019/2020. It is worth mentioning that nothing much has changed as far as the almost complete lack of preparedness for bushfires in this region is concerned, apart from much posturing and virtue signalling from local, state, and federal governments. Communications capabilities alone remain laughably inadequate in this part of the world. There are no longer any proper landline telephones in Australia and the mobile phone transmitters (essentially one mobile network only) will fail in a serious future bushfire just like they did last time around, cutting everyone off from information and assistance. Similarly, most communities still rely on a single way in and out of their locality. It’s time to stop wittering on about climate change and actually do something about the much vaunted ‘resilience’ of communities that in truth have always been at risk. But then nobody gives a toss about regional communities in one of the most irresponsibly and lazily urbanised countries in the world.
October 17, 2021
It’s impossible not to be moved, deeply, by Currowan, the debut book by award winning journalist Bronwyn Adcock.
It is a gripping insider’s account of the monstrous bushfire that terrorised the South Coast of New South Wales for more than 70 days, killing three and incinerating homes and wildlife across nearly 5000 square kilometres – one of many bushfires paralysing Australia during the 2019-20 Black Summer.
Adcock evokes a vivid sense of the heart-hammering fear, bravery, trauma and community-spirit shared by most families in the region, including her own, in the face of a fire described at a coronial inquest last month as “extreme, abnormal and unlike any other”.
But her book goes far beyond just a retelling of survivors’ agonising personal experiences.
She also explores – putting on full display her 25 years’ worth of investigative journalism experience – important questions about Australia’s preparedness for the more dangerous world we are inevitably entering in which the behaviour of bushfires, like Currowan, will elude traditional understanding, far outstripping capacity to fight them.
And she does not shy away from critiquing authorities’ response to the fire. Drawing on first-hand accounts from impacted residents, firefighting crews and community leaders, she asks tough questions around decisions taken during the emergency, and calls out flaws that hampered firefighting efforts, some possibly putting lives at higher risk.
Adcock begins her story on the last day of 2019.
It was a few weeks after her family’s home on a 40-acre property, around 20km south of Ulladulla, was engulfed by Currowan’s raging flames, her husband – an experienced RFS volunteer who stayed to defend their home – lucky to have been pulled out alive by his equally courageous RFS mates.
It’s 3am and she suddenly wakes in her temporary accommodation, heart racing – a regular experience for her since the fire began its rampage from a lightning strike at the end of November.
“Often nothing in particular rouses me,” she writes, “only a feeling of vigilance: I’m ready…But most of the time, what wakes me is fear of what this still-burning fire will do next.”
This dread of the fire’s capriciousness – its “freakish” behaviour taking even experienced firefighters by surprise – becomes a strong theme throughout Adcock’s story.
Using meticulous scientific detail, she builds up the reader’s understanding of the “rules” it broke –such as spreading quickly at night, advancing against the wind, spawning spot fires many kilometres ahead of itself, and creating more fire-generated thunderstorms – or pyrocumulonimbus events – than ever before.
Alongside her technical insights, Adcock’s superb retelling of survivors’ accounts also conjures a sense the fire was like a living, breathing, lurking beast – hiding silently, then ferociously striking without warning – amplifying the malevolence of the “big red fire dragon”, as it was described by one survivor.
Yet despite the seemingly uncontainable nature of the raging fire, fuelled by drought-stricken conditions and the highest temperatures on record, Adcock rolls out many well researched facts that show the intensity of the fires shouldn’t have been a surprise. This includes a 2008 report commissioned for the Australian government that predicted these types of conditions “should be directly observable by 2020”.
Adcock’s inference is clear: the country should have been better prepared.
The heart of Adcock’s book lies in the personal stories of the dozens of survivors she interviewed, crystalising their thrumming anxiety, quick thinking and harrowing escapes.
Like the woman who was blocked from returning by road to her husband, with Parkinson’s disease, as the fire headed towards their Lake Conjola home. She resorted to trekking eight kilometres along the beach and swimming through the inlet to get to him, navigating choking black smoke and kangaroos in flames desperately jumping into the water’s safety.
Or the couple on the phone to their son, as he told them he’d become trapped in their burning family home encircled by the firestorm, while on the other line emergency services were telling them they had no resources to help.
Then there are Adcock’s uplifting accounts of powerful community spirit, including residents opening their doors to strangers who’d lost their homes, the circus offering generators to light up community halls that had lost power and were serving as evacuation centres, and the village publicans who sheltered the locals as their homes exploded in flames.
Adcock’s investment in capturing these stories and their ramifications is clear – not only for her own community on the South Coast, where she grew up and returned around 10 years ago after building her career reporting on global and local current affairs including for ABC and SBS.
It is also a stark warning to every community throughout Australia – and the world – that Black Summer was not a one-off event.
The evidence she provides – from decades of scientific forecasts reiterated in the recent Bushfires Royal Commission and NSW Bushfire Inquiry – shows more catastrophic fires are inevitable as the climate changes. And, as the Currowan fire proved, the methods of the past cannot be relied on to fight the changing fires of the future.
It’s these warnings, coupled with Adcock’s insights into how the nation might become better prepared, that make this book so important.
It is a gripping insider’s account of the monstrous bushfire that terrorised the South Coast of New South Wales for more than 70 days, killing three and incinerating homes and wildlife across nearly 5000 square kilometres – one of many bushfires paralysing Australia during the 2019-20 Black Summer.
Adcock evokes a vivid sense of the heart-hammering fear, bravery, trauma and community-spirit shared by most families in the region, including her own, in the face of a fire described at a coronial inquest last month as “extreme, abnormal and unlike any other”.
But her book goes far beyond just a retelling of survivors’ agonising personal experiences.
She also explores – putting on full display her 25 years’ worth of investigative journalism experience – important questions about Australia’s preparedness for the more dangerous world we are inevitably entering in which the behaviour of bushfires, like Currowan, will elude traditional understanding, far outstripping capacity to fight them.
And she does not shy away from critiquing authorities’ response to the fire. Drawing on first-hand accounts from impacted residents, firefighting crews and community leaders, she asks tough questions around decisions taken during the emergency, and calls out flaws that hampered firefighting efforts, some possibly putting lives at higher risk.
Adcock begins her story on the last day of 2019.
It was a few weeks after her family’s home on a 40-acre property, around 20km south of Ulladulla, was engulfed by Currowan’s raging flames, her husband – an experienced RFS volunteer who stayed to defend their home – lucky to have been pulled out alive by his equally courageous RFS mates.
It’s 3am and she suddenly wakes in her temporary accommodation, heart racing – a regular experience for her since the fire began its rampage from a lightning strike at the end of November.
“Often nothing in particular rouses me,” she writes, “only a feeling of vigilance: I’m ready…But most of the time, what wakes me is fear of what this still-burning fire will do next.”
This dread of the fire’s capriciousness – its “freakish” behaviour taking even experienced firefighters by surprise – becomes a strong theme throughout Adcock’s story.
Using meticulous scientific detail, she builds up the reader’s understanding of the “rules” it broke –such as spreading quickly at night, advancing against the wind, spawning spot fires many kilometres ahead of itself, and creating more fire-generated thunderstorms – or pyrocumulonimbus events – than ever before.
Alongside her technical insights, Adcock’s superb retelling of survivors’ accounts also conjures a sense the fire was like a living, breathing, lurking beast – hiding silently, then ferociously striking without warning – amplifying the malevolence of the “big red fire dragon”, as it was described by one survivor.
Yet despite the seemingly uncontainable nature of the raging fire, fuelled by drought-stricken conditions and the highest temperatures on record, Adcock rolls out many well researched facts that show the intensity of the fires shouldn’t have been a surprise. This includes a 2008 report commissioned for the Australian government that predicted these types of conditions “should be directly observable by 2020”.
Adcock’s inference is clear: the country should have been better prepared.
The heart of Adcock’s book lies in the personal stories of the dozens of survivors she interviewed, crystalising their thrumming anxiety, quick thinking and harrowing escapes.
Like the woman who was blocked from returning by road to her husband, with Parkinson’s disease, as the fire headed towards their Lake Conjola home. She resorted to trekking eight kilometres along the beach and swimming through the inlet to get to him, navigating choking black smoke and kangaroos in flames desperately jumping into the water’s safety.
Or the couple on the phone to their son, as he told them he’d become trapped in their burning family home encircled by the firestorm, while on the other line emergency services were telling them they had no resources to help.
Then there are Adcock’s uplifting accounts of powerful community spirit, including residents opening their doors to strangers who’d lost their homes, the circus offering generators to light up community halls that had lost power and were serving as evacuation centres, and the village publicans who sheltered the locals as their homes exploded in flames.
Adcock’s investment in capturing these stories and their ramifications is clear – not only for her own community on the South Coast, where she grew up and returned around 10 years ago after building her career reporting on global and local current affairs including for ABC and SBS.
It is also a stark warning to every community throughout Australia – and the world – that Black Summer was not a one-off event.
The evidence she provides – from decades of scientific forecasts reiterated in the recent Bushfires Royal Commission and NSW Bushfire Inquiry – shows more catastrophic fires are inevitable as the climate changes. And, as the Currowan fire proved, the methods of the past cannot be relied on to fight the changing fires of the future.
It’s these warnings, coupled with Adcock’s insights into how the nation might become better prepared, that make this book so important.
November 3, 2022
I loved Currowan. It was a gripping page-turner, telling the background to one of the biggest bushfires of the 2019-20 season. Bronwyn Adcock has woven in her and her family's story of living through the bushfires as well as scientific and political information. She has done meticulous research and lots of great interviews. Leaves you feeling so angry and fearful of the future. But you are also left with the feeling that we can do better and try harder.
June 25, 2025
An outstanding effort in bringing this together - such chaos and so many individual stories. Horrific and frightening to be taken back into those days of crisis on the NSW south coast. A balanced and considered argument for a new approach to fighting these extreme wild fires. First, we need the politicians on board to provide sufficient funding for specialised aircraft to take out fires early in remote bushland.
January 15, 2022
A must read for anyone wanting to hear the first-hand accounts of the impact of climate change on our lives.
My family lost a house to the Currowan fire so this was particularly important to read.
My family lost a house to the Currowan fire so this was particularly important to read.
November 24, 2021
New years eve 2019 is one I will never forget. My neighbours and I sitting in the garage, listening to the local fire crews and radio station. Two of us had family in the direct path of the fire and we could not get hold of them. Thankfully not long before midnight we did get calls to say our loved ones were ok.
That entire summer still haunts me. It has left an indelible mark on our psyche.
Currowan is a must read for all. Communities were failed by state and federal politics. Billions of animals dead. Millions of acres burnt out. And it could have been mitigated had the government heeded the warning of the retired emergency chiefs who knew months in advance that the fire season would be a catastrophic one.
Almost two years on, communities are still reeling with many people battling PTSD. Winter is especially difficult as wood smoke from fireplaces can trigger traumatic memories.
Climate change is here and it is very real.
That entire summer still haunts me. It has left an indelible mark on our psyche.
Currowan is a must read for all. Communities were failed by state and federal politics. Billions of animals dead. Millions of acres burnt out. And it could have been mitigated had the government heeded the warning of the retired emergency chiefs who knew months in advance that the fire season would be a catastrophic one.
Almost two years on, communities are still reeling with many people battling PTSD. Winter is especially difficult as wood smoke from fireplaces can trigger traumatic memories.
Climate change is here and it is very real.
October 21, 2021
Oh my god, Bronwyn. Such an amazing read. Many a tear shed, being so close to home for so many of us on the south coast. Written so as to keep you intrigued but also full of facts and discussion. Well done 😍
October 28, 2021
A well written and thought provoking book about the horrific bushfires during the summer of 2019-2020. Bronwyn wrote this book as objectively as she could, having lived through it. This book affected me profoundly.
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March 22, 2022A visceral account of the worst fire season this country has ever faced and the dark days for the communities affected. This memoir takes the reader into the burning centre of the Currowan fire where we see the good, the bad and the downright terrifying as small communities fight to defend their homes and each other in the face of catastrophe.
Bronwyn Adcock brings her 25 years of journalistic experience to deliver an ‘on the ground running’ style narration of the Currowan fire in what feels like real time. She has worked in current affairs for the ABC and has written various articles for The Monthly on climate change, fires and rising sea levels, marking her as a well informed and respected voice on the topic of Australian climate issues. The voice of the novel is brave and daring. The author outlines the failures of the Federal Government in the lead up, events, and aftermath of the 2019-2020 fires. Specifically pointing the finger at Scott Morrison’s neglect of the warnings issued by the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action (ELCA) and the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities (AFAC).
She shares the intimate details of her community’s struggle. Recounting the ‘cubies’, a group of locals who rigged up their own firefighting apparatus in the backs of their utes to help defend the community when they knew no trucks where coming, often working through the night to defend others homes long after theirs had burnt down. Scott, a member of the Conjola community talks about the media’s response to the fire saying, ‘Instead of medical personnel and trauma counsellors, the community were faced with microphones and cameras.’ When a local woman was asked why she chose to speak to the media in front of her burnt home she responded, ‘I really only did it so my children and family could hear my voice and know I was alive.’
Currowan is a portrait of the collective fear, tension and hopelessness felt in the face of an unstoppable disaster and the bravery of those who faced it together. This book does what it sets out to do; to tell us one thing. Climate change is here and we are not ready.
Bronwyn Adcock brings her 25 years of journalistic experience to deliver an ‘on the ground running’ style narration of the Currowan fire in what feels like real time. She has worked in current affairs for the ABC and has written various articles for The Monthly on climate change, fires and rising sea levels, marking her as a well informed and respected voice on the topic of Australian climate issues. The voice of the novel is brave and daring. The author outlines the failures of the Federal Government in the lead up, events, and aftermath of the 2019-2020 fires. Specifically pointing the finger at Scott Morrison’s neglect of the warnings issued by the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action (ELCA) and the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities (AFAC).
She shares the intimate details of her community’s struggle. Recounting the ‘cubies’, a group of locals who rigged up their own firefighting apparatus in the backs of their utes to help defend the community when they knew no trucks where coming, often working through the night to defend others homes long after theirs had burnt down. Scott, a member of the Conjola community talks about the media’s response to the fire saying, ‘Instead of medical personnel and trauma counsellors, the community were faced with microphones and cameras.’ When a local woman was asked why she chose to speak to the media in front of her burnt home she responded, ‘I really only did it so my children and family could hear my voice and know I was alive.’
Currowan is a portrait of the collective fear, tension and hopelessness felt in the face of an unstoppable disaster and the bravery of those who faced it together. This book does what it sets out to do; to tell us one thing. Climate change is here and we are not ready.
December 30, 2021
One of the best books I've read this year! As an Aussie who was living in Sydney during the bushfire season, I often checked the news and fire maps, but it didn't affect me directly and so I picked up the book fairly blind.
Bronwyn's detail into her own experiences and those of a vast number of Australians provided great insight into the impacts of the fire - it was most impactful reading of the more personal stories; the environmental ravaging of a bushfire is obvious, but the effects on individuals and communities can be more subtle.
The scenes were described really vividly and kept me interested the whole way through. The science/general info about bushfires was insightful, especially the formation of the pyrocumulonimbus (I had to google how to spell that!). I can't imagine seeing something that simultaneously awe-inspiring and life-threatening in person.
It was heartwarming at times, seeing how communities came together during what must have been an extremely horrifying experience, suspenseful and sad at others - the negative impacts of bushfires such as these can never be completely avoided. There was also the ongoing narrative of the organisation of the RFS, and the interaction between State and Federal governments. It is quite disheartening to see how the bushfire funding was handled by the government - their "wait until it's a bigger problem" approach reminds me of our current COVID situation - imagine if problems were tackled before they're impossible to solve!
Bronwyn's detail into her own experiences and those of a vast number of Australians provided great insight into the impacts of the fire - it was most impactful reading of the more personal stories; the environmental ravaging of a bushfire is obvious, but the effects on individuals and communities can be more subtle.
The scenes were described really vividly and kept me interested the whole way through. The science/general info about bushfires was insightful, especially the formation of the pyrocumulonimbus (I had to google how to spell that!). I can't imagine seeing something that simultaneously awe-inspiring and life-threatening in person.
It was heartwarming at times, seeing how communities came together during what must have been an extremely horrifying experience, suspenseful and sad at others - the negative impacts of bushfires such as these can never be completely avoided. There was also the ongoing narrative of the organisation of the RFS, and the interaction between State and Federal governments. It is quite disheartening to see how the bushfire funding was handled by the government - their "wait until it's a bigger problem" approach reminds me of our current COVID situation - imagine if problems were tackled before they're impossible to solve!
May 9, 2022
Currowan by Bronwyn Adcock combines first hand accounts of living through the Currowan bushfire with an exploration of what led to the devastating fires that blazed across the nation as 2019 moved into 2020. Drawing on her expertise as a journalist as well as her experience of being a resident of the South Coast of NSW, Bronwyn Adcock is able to convey her own story, as well as the stories of her community and critically presents the events that unfolded during the worst bushfire season in Australia.
This book should be mandatory reading for the climate change deniers in Australia, and highlights the short comings of our current government that ignored all the warning in the lead up to these horrific fires. Action was taken too late or not at all, and Australians should read this as a warning of what is to come if we continue to ignore the science and don't hold the politicians accountable for their inaction.
Heartbreaking but necessary read. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5/5).
This book should be mandatory reading for the climate change deniers in Australia, and highlights the short comings of our current government that ignored all the warning in the lead up to these horrific fires. Action was taken too late or not at all, and Australians should read this as a warning of what is to come if we continue to ignore the science and don't hold the politicians accountable for their inaction.
Heartbreaking but necessary read. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5/5).
March 23, 2022
What an incredibly gripping book this is - in so many different ways. Bronwyn's ability to intertwine fact findings from real life events with harrowing anecdotes from those she spoke to (and indeed even her own experience of the Black Summer bushfires) is genuinely impressive.
Her writing style sends you on a journey you cannot even begin to fathom. The sheer ferocity of these fires as well as the grim warnings for the future that proceed them beggars belief.
To use an expression from this very book, to read it as akin to driving past a car accident, you know you shouldn't, but you look anyway. I could barely put this down such was the intensity of the timeline. You just hope against hope that we don't have to read recounts like this again!
Her writing style sends you on a journey you cannot even begin to fathom. The sheer ferocity of these fires as well as the grim warnings for the future that proceed them beggars belief.
To use an expression from this very book, to read it as akin to driving past a car accident, you know you shouldn't, but you look anyway. I could barely put this down such was the intensity of the timeline. You just hope against hope that we don't have to read recounts like this again!
February 1, 2022
Bronwyn Adcock's powerful insights into the menacing Currowan fire and the devastating impact on communities on the south coast is a must read for anyone who cares about our changing climate. Bronwyn meticulously documents how the fires ravaged communities, through personal experience, eye witness accounts and official reports into the summer fires. In the final chapters she reflects on her own changing relationship with the power of our natural environment and why, as a country, we need to wake up and act before it's too late.
Five stars from me.
Five stars from me.
March 7, 2023
How can one not be moved emotionally by this first hand account of the Currowan fires by Bronwyn.
Her own account, her mapping and articulate depiction of the events from insider’s perspectives, RFS mapping and post investigation, make this a hard, but important read.
I’m so grateful for those that write these terrifying and life altering events. It really allows you to hold such appreciation and value for each and every day we have and how quickly we can lose it all.
A great, thought out blend of personal account, data and journalism.
Her own account, her mapping and articulate depiction of the events from insider’s perspectives, RFS mapping and post investigation, make this a hard, but important read.
I’m so grateful for those that write these terrifying and life altering events. It really allows you to hold such appreciation and value for each and every day we have and how quickly we can lose it all.
A great, thought out blend of personal account, data and journalism.
January 23, 2022
I really enjoyed this book, I was one many on the south coast during the currowan fire, I was pregnant and helping my parents water down there house and surrounding yard. This book so well writing and informative on things I didn't know that had also happened, I was also transported back to that time. I would highly recommend reading this book, it could be a little triggering if you experienced this event. But truly is a great read.
May 13, 2023
Shines a devastating light on the climate crisis. A little tricky to keep up with all the individuals mentioned as there are a lot of names, but an important recount of a horrendous tragedy.
I’m not Australian but I fear all governments are the same after reading this. Definitely makes you ponder why we end up electing these people to run our countries!
I’m not Australian but I fear all governments are the same after reading this. Definitely makes you ponder why we end up electing these people to run our countries!
August 12, 2022
The Currowan bushfire through first hand experiences recounted including residents, RFS and experts. Actually terrifying. May we learn from our mistakes because in this changing climate it is sure to happen again.
January 25, 2022
I hope Scott Morrison read this.
January 29, 2022
Concerning, tragic, climate change is real. Personal accounts, terrifying and traumatic accounts of a terrible fire.
March 31, 2022
Utterly terrifying
January 8, 2023
Well researched.
Well written.
Very scary.
I strongly recommend this book for all Australians.
Well written.
Very scary.
I strongly recommend this book for all Australians.
January 12, 2024
Very powerful rendering of the 2019/2020 summer that burned, particularly for those who know and love the NSW south coast.
April 9, 2022
So amazing to be able to read a book written about the most anxiety ridden moments in my life and to be able to see it from other peoples perspectives.
It felt so weird but so heartwarming to read this book and recognize names and places and relating it to what I was doing on those days.
Whether you are from that area or not I recommend 😊
It felt so weird but so heartwarming to read this book and recognize names and places and relating it to what I was doing on those days.
Whether you are from that area or not I recommend 😊
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May 19, 2024Finish date: 22.09. 2023
Genre: non-fiction
Rating: B+
Genre: non-fiction
Rating: B+
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews