“The fires were the invisible monster”

Australia’s fires of 2019 and 2020 may feel like a long time ago for some, but they were such a searing and devastating catastrophe that writers Tony Ayres and Belinda Chayko felt compelled to craft a response however they feasibly could.

The result is a 6 part ABC drama, Fires, which dramatises true-life accounts into storylines of volunteer firefighters, emergency workers, farmers, holidaymakers, friends and strangers, united by a force of nature.

“I was just so overwhelmed by all the information I was absorbing and trying to work out how to respond to that as an artist and as a human being… like, what can you do?, Tony Ayres tells TV Tonight.

“What I normally do is tell stories. When I talked to Belinda it just seemed like there was value in honouring some of these experiences and trying to make sense of it.”

Fires opens with traditional Aussie beach scenes with volunteer Queensland firefighters Tash (Eliza Scanlen) and Mott (Hunter Page-Lochard). But appearances can be deceptive. A sense of playfulness, and even romance, is soon upended when fire breaks out.

“In the writers room, we talked a lot about Wolf Creek and horror tropes and how, in some ways the fires were the invisible monster, thematically. Belinda Chayko who was the showrunner and an extraordinary creative, was really interested in the idea that summer suddenly has changed its meaning. To do that, we had to evoke a fairly ‘innocent’ summer.”

A serialised anthology unfolds with their characters featured across multiple episodes, but episode two turns to defeated dairy farmers Kath (Miranda Otto) and Duncan (Richard Roxburgh) who return in the aftermath of the fire, to find their homestead gone.

“It’s pretty devastating. The performances by Miranda and Richard are just extraordinary,” he continues.

“It’s beautiful writing from Jacqueline Perske, beautiful direction from Ana Kokkinos. The whole thing is put together so well, but I love each of the episodes, for slightly different reasons.

“Episode 3 is extraordinary. It’s based on a question of whether to stay or go. We follow two different stories, one of a couple who decide to stay but the husband gets stranded. Anna Torv is left on her own, with the fires about to hit. That was based on real stories that we’d heard about. Then we show the difficulty of a family trying to leave and the hitting all the roadblocks and literal obstacles. That episode has an almost Wake in Fright quality. You don’t even see the fires in that episode.”

The story tracks the 2019 / 2020 fires from Queensland to Victoria. A stellar cast includes Dan Spielman, Sam Worthington, Kate Box, Daniel Henshall, Sullivan Stapleton and Noni Hazlehurst.

“People were really jumping onto this project. I think everyone felt it was a conversation that people wanted to be a part of. It was a story that people emotionally connected with,” Ayres explains.

“It’s based on real stories of volunteer fireys who traveled down the coast to fight fires. They basically left home and spent that summer moving from place to place to help. We really wanted to reflect and honour that. They were extraordinary people.”

Due to COVID shooting took place in Victoria, yet despite realistic fire scenes Ayres insists there were no bushfires lit to create realism.

“We were very conscious that would not would not be a good look!” he continues.

“There were a couple of small things that we did. We had some special effects fires, but honestly, we just couldn’t do anything at the scale that was required to emulate the real situation.

“We do a lot of the fire stuff through Dreamscreen …the new technology that The Mandalorian used. Some of it is actually using real footage from bushfires.

“The crew does an extraordinary job. The combination of visual effects, special effects, and DreamScreen was phenomenal. We looked at films like Gravity for ways in which you feel very immersed in an experience.”

Yet by its very subject matter, Fires is not light entertainment. Ayres understands there will be some who may not be ready to relive experiences still too raw. But he hopes it underlines the adversity of the human spirit and the power of community in healing.

“People have to make their own choices about whether they watch it or not. Or whether they’re ready,” he acknowledges.

“Facing trauma can also be a part of the healing process. I don’t think we always have to hide away from it. We’ve tried to be as careful and respectful as we possibly can. There are warnings at the front and there are directions to where you might go if you’ve been traumatised at the end.

“It felt as though this is a conversation that we can’t really wait too long to have.

“As a planet, we need to talk about these things. There’s an urgency to that, which I think is underlying why we felt that this was an important conversation to be having now.”

Fires airs 8:40pm Sunday on ABC.

This series features images and dramatic reconstructions of the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires which may distress some viewers. If this program has raised personal concerns you may wish to contact one of these services. Lifeline’s Dedicated Bushfire Recovery Line 13 43 57, Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636 or visit abc.net.au/fires for further information, support services and resources.