‘It just can’t be replaced’: Mallacoota’s black summer grief is still fresh after five years

Don Ashby wrote his way through recovery until there was a book. Photograph: Rachel Mounsey/The Guardian

Don Ashby

On New Year’s Eve on Karbeethong hill, Don Ashby is sitting on the veranda step when the music dims, the fairy lights fade and the orange glow creeps in with the smell of smoke. It plays out again. What would he do differently, he asks himself. He thinks he’d stay around the house longer. Actually, he probably wouldn’t leave. Last time, he went across town to help out some friends he thought would be in the firing line. Turns out, they were OK and his house burned. Now he think’s he’d stay close on his side of town, where it all burned to cinders, where the bush is close, where he could support those around him.