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New South Wales Black Christmas Fires

Oh, the air it was dry and the winds they were high
On the New South Wales Coast
With temperatures over thirty-four
Just a tinderbox about to explode.

Happy families blessed with a well-earned rest
In their holiday attire
Little did suspect, lives would soon be wrecked
By the New South Wales Black Christmas Fires.

 

On Black Christmas Day up near Penrith way,
The first bushfires took their toll,
Thirty homes were claimed by a wall of flames,
And sixty more burned out of control.

Oh, the fire fighters came, twenty thousand names,
From every State and Shire,
To risk their lives with no end in sight
In the New South Wales Black Christmas Fires.

'Evacuate!' The alarm was made
As thousands left their homes
As memories and precious things
And photographs would soon be gone.

Oh, Australia's past is filled with bushfire ash
But nothing worst had been seen prior,
Six thousand square K's would soon be razed
By the New South Wales Black Christmas Fires.

Damn those arsonists in twenty-one arrests
With fourteen juveniles,
And serial attacks by pyromaniacs
But one was just a nine-year old child.

Oh, those firebug thieves who could cause such griefs
To what thoughts do they aspire?
Is it angry minds or just thrills behind
The New South Wales Black Christmas Fires.

Oh, that 'Elvis' nickname for that great sky-crane
Helitanker fire-fighting machine,
Over burning gales dropped nine thousand pails
With a whoosh that was a joy to see!

And on the ground the brave fire fighters saved
With containment and back burning pyres
But the danger remained as we prayed for rain
In the New South Wales Black Christmas Fires.

When the deluge came of that precious rain,
The Blue Mountains felt it first,
And in Sydney town, the drops came down
And began to quench that awful thirst.

Still the South Coast burned and all hands were turned
To the areas most dire,
Until the back was smashed, in the smoke and ash
Of the New South Wales Black Christmas Fires.

 

 

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