There’s a dinner party game we play about disaster. But when fire bears down the choice is stark

2 hours ago 1

Opinion

January 16, 2026 — 11.00am

Last Friday. The fire was so close the sky was an endless orange blur. An expected wind change could bring the rampaging front to the farmhouse. Inside, my son’s girlfriend was handpicking what to stow in a shipping container in case the home was lost.

She started with the photo albums, keepers of her family’s 150 years on the Strathbogie farm, of weddings and babies and forgotten summer days. Texted a few photos to me, knowing my sentimental streak.

A proud preppie, in school hoodie and shorts. “First day of school,” she wrote. “Hope it makes you smile.”

It didn’t. It made me cry so much I felt desiccated. I was beside myself for this incredible woman, for her dad and brother, bunkering down to defend their property as Mother Nature waged war.

How was she so calm, having to decide what really mattered and what didn’t, amid dire emergency warnings?

“Calm for now until the wind change hits,” she texted.

“Lucky Dad’s been in the CFA for 55 years. He’s the most capable man I know, followed by my brother, so the plan is strong and everyone knows their roles.”

Two white-knuckle days later, the fire was controlled, the farm unscathed. The family exhausted but safe. Like everyone who loves them, I was relieved. And in awe of all Australians who make similar awful choices every summer, about whether to stay or leave — and what to save if you can.

What you would grab if your house was burning down is an old question, asked lightly at dinner parties and on roadies. But with Victoria on fire again last week, it stopped being theoretical.

The reckoning of bushfire season has made me calculate what I’d put in my own shipping container. For me, all the stuff I’ve spent years buying and dusting and insuring, the things I thought defined me or connected me to the past, got weighed against another question: can you replace it, or can you not?

Which means most of it would be left behind in a flash. People and pets are automatic inclusions, of course — and hate to say it, but probably phones too — but my list was short after that.

The department store Santa photo where one kid is wearing a choker, one has a broken arm and one is on the knee of the only Santa ever to look off chops on meth. My dog Maggie’s ashes and collar. My grandmother Neita’s handwritten recipe book. My other grandmother Beatrice’s ruby ring.

The copy of Gone with the Wind inscribed on my 13th birthday by Mum. Ancient black suede Chloé sandals. The painting Dad brought home from Bali after his cousin died there in a 1974 Pan Am crash. If it fits in the container, the Moran modular my parents bought in 1977.

When I ask other people, they also go mostly for irreplaceables. My friend Mia: “Aunty Mary’s rings, birth certificates, my stack of rejection letters from TV news directors, all shoved in the Louis Vuitton handbag which has taken a decade to soften.”

Paula, my Sydney mate: “The crystal glasses my grandparents carted over from Croatia as a gift for my parents when I was born.” Canberra radio announcer Gemma: “The at-home nail salon.” My husband: “Drums. Trophy for Glen Iris cricket club champion 1996-97. Mum in her urn.”

In the heat of the moment at the farm, one stoic 30-year-old had been similarly clear eyed about what counted. Once the photos and documents were packed, what she and the family valued most was each other.

Should the front move through, they’d run for the dam. “If the farm isn’t OK,” she’d texted, “we will be.”

That understatement held everything she didn’t say. Anyone who’s lost a home to fire knows the grief isn’t simple — the dislocation, the years to rebuild, the reach for things that no longer exist.

But only people are truly priceless. Uselessly safe at the beach, my last text late on the Friday before I went to sleep not knowing what would happen to her overnight, was short: “You run so fast to that dam.”

Kate Halfpenny is the founder of Bad Mother Media.

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