Fire: a Fanfic for Bushfire Support
I haven’t posted in months even tho I’m still posting fic over on AO3 but I’m back for one important post:
On December 20th I drove 500km from my home in the Australian Capital Territory [NSW] to my parents’ house in Victoria. The entire 6-hour trip, visibility was well below 500m (0.3mi) due to intense smoke haze and it was terrifying.
Bushfires are normal in Australia, everything about this year is not. Our fire season started months early. The area burnt has surpassed 4 million hectares already with months left in the fire season. In a normal year less than 500,000ha would be burnt total. Fires have been burning out of control for months and are joining together into massive complexes which have no hope of being contained until we get rain – and that won’t be until late January, at least (per long range forecasting). Smoke has caused weeks on end of hazardous air quality and corresponding increases in hospital admissions etc across large parts of the eastern states. Coastal tourist towns have lost business in their busiest period of the year and it will likely lead to many small, local businesses closing down. Millions of agricultural animals and wildlife have died, thousands of buildings have been destroyed including homes, businesses and sheds. You can find more info on the situation so far from The Guardian here.
So much of it is wildly out of human control, and it’s terrifying. I don’t know, personally, what it’s like to be actively threatened by a fire in any meaningful way. I also don’t know what to do to help.
But I did, while I was panicking for 6 hours driving through an apocalyptic smoke haze with a painters’ mask intermittently over my face when it got too bad for my car air con to keep it out, come up with a rough idea of how I could throw a “if you can help, if you’d like to, this is how” on the back of a fic.
So here goes: I wrote a fic. It’s heavy on trigger warnings: bushfire, property loss, death, PTSD. There are no major character deaths and chapter 2-3 will be generally fluffy because that’s what I needed to write. [click the text for link to fic]
And if you like the fic, love the fic, or even if you don’t really care for my writing or follow me for something other than pitch perfect, here’s how you can help out with the Australian bushfires:
The Red Cross assists with various disaster recovery and relief efforts in communities affected by fire
St Vincent De Paul Society also assists with bushfire recovery and supporting affected communtiies
The Salvation Army assists with recovery efforts and at evacuation and relief centres
BlazeAid is a charity which specifically helps rural communities with practical bushfire recovery such as rebuilding fences – fences are SO important to rural farming communities to allow livestock safety, etc!
GIVIT allows you to donate money to help specific projects for communities in need as a result of the Queensland and New South Wales bushfires
WIRES is a wildlife rescue group which supports the rescue and recovery of native wildlife in a variety of situations including the current bushfire emergency
You can donate directly to volunteer firefighting organisations in both NSW – the Rural Fire Service and Victoria – the Country Fire Authority. I was unable to find equivalent links for other state fire services. Direct donations may only be available to individuals in Australia.
Can’t donate? Don’t want to? That’s absolutely fine. There’s a lot of other ways you can help, too –
Share the message – this one, or any other!
Donate to a charity or relief effort local to you, even if that’s totally different to this – there’s a lot going on in the world, and a lot of people could use a helping hand.
Support movements raising awareness about the impact of climate change on the extent and duration of extreme weather/climatic conditions and related public health outcomes
Cut down on waste and trash, use water efficiently, and help other people do the same
