The bush always comes back. We visited Pomborneit after the fires there in January 2006. It was a bleak, fascinating landscape, already coming back to life.

But the human loss in these fires has been appalling. I received a forwarded email this morning – I really wish it had not been sent on to me – from a man in a society of which I am a member, informing us all of the death of his son, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren, aged 3, 7 and 8 in the Kinglake fire. I don’t know how you recover from that.

The fire was perhaps only half an hour away. The helicopters were flying overhead putting out spot fires and bombing the front. And then the wind changed. I don’t know what the cfa did, but that put the fire out. In the street where one of my friends lived, three people died in Ferny Creek in that fire, as their house burned. It was the most emotionally draining day of my life.

But the world recovered. Funerals were held. Houses rebuilt. Long time locals would say, and that house over there burned in the 64 fires. This one in the fires of ash Wednesday. I was amazed at their resiliency. They live here by choice. They knew the risks.

What happened next surprised me. First there was war. The birds were at war and it lasted about two weeks. They had to reestablish their territories as there was now much less forest.

I used to drive thorough the forest at sassafras to go to work. For the first week the fires still burned in various logs on the ground. First the forest went pink as a mould covered the ground. That was replaced by a white mould a week or so later. Then when it finally did rain, green shoots started to appear. Slowly the forest started to regrow.