Who warns you of disaster when your mobile fails?
asserted
mobile → warn → disaster
One community has a plan
asserted
community → have → plan
On January 8, 2026, Victorian authorities began warning a catastrophic fire rating had been declared for the following day.
asserted
rating → begin → day
Conditions would be "the most dangerous experienced this summer", the Country Fire Authority (CFA) said.
asserted
Authority → experience → ?
One brigade in central Victoria issued a clarion call on social media: "160 people died on Black Saturday in the district 12 response area" on a similarly risky day.
asserted
people → issue → day
Further west, in Castlemaine, Fiannuala Morgan was encouraging her parents to leave their property in the bone dry, flinty hills outside of town.
asserted
Morgan → encourage → town
Fiannuala would be staying in Castlemaine, a town of around 7,000 people etched out of goldrush-era buildings and wide, sleepy streets.
asserted
Fiannuala → stay → buildings
"I was aware of this catastrophic rating but did not have an integrated sense of what that actually meant," Fiannuala tells me.
asserted
Fiannuala → have → me
"Because when the fire started, it really went from zero to 100 in a matter of seconds."
asserted
it → start → seconds
Everything seemed to happen at once.
asserted
Everything → seem → ?
When a ferocious hot wind arrived, it was as if the door of a giant oven had burst open.
asserted
door → arrive → oven
The power went out.
asserted
power → go → ?
The emergency app on Fiannuala's phone lit up, showing multiple fires had started.
asserted
fires → light → phone
"And then my phone stopped working, but not completely," she says.
asserted
she → stop → ?
"The first thing that happened was my emergency app froze.
asserted
app → happen → ?
And then I tried to call my mother, and I couldn't get through on the phone.
asserted
I → try → phone
I tried to send a text to either my mother or my father, and that didn't work either."
asserted
that → try → mother
A few kilometres away, a grass fire was racing through paddocks towards the nearby orchard town of Harcourt, known for its juicy apples.
asserted
fire → race → apples
Fiannuala knew about the fire because she was able to call her brother in Melbourne, even though other calls were failing.
asserted
calls → know → Melbourne
"So then, he was updating me about what was happening on the VicEmergency app."
asserted
what → update → app
At some point, Fiannuala left her house and walked up a nearby hill to try to get reception.
asserted
Fiannuala → leave → reception
From the hill she watched as a thick cloud of smoke turned the blue sky an ominous shade of orange.
asserted
cloud → watch → orange
Her brother told her the wind was pushing the fire towards Castlemaine.
asserted
wind → tell → Castlemaine
"I had always thought that Castlemaine was a very safe place if there was a fire but suddenly you realise, oh gosh, there's actually nowhere in these conditions that is safe," she says.
asserted
she → think → conditions
Back at home Fiannuala put her Persian cat in the bath because the air conditioning had dropped out along with the power.
asserted
conditioning → put → power
The blackout had also rendered the NBN useless.
asserted
NBN → render → ?
She didn't have a backup battery-powered radio, so she turned on her car radio to listen to the ABC's emergency broadcast.
asserted
she → have → broadcast
"But by that point," she says, "the broadcasting tower at Mount Alexander had burned".
asserted
tower → say → Alexander
Alone, and with dwindling access to information, she decided to find her parents who were now sheltering at a friend's house nearby.
asserted
who → dwindle → house
"It was not responsible of me to go," she says.
asserted
she → go → me
"There were no traffic lights … people were driving erratically."
asserted
people → be → ?
Fiannuala found that her parents had patchy mobile phone signals and couldn't access the emergency apps either.
asserted
parents → find → apps
"Sometimes you could use your phone and sometimes you couldn't," she says.
uncertain
she → use → phone
As the afternoon progressed, emergency warnings "to shelter indoors now" were being issued for nearby Harcourt.
asserted
warnings → progress → Harcourt
The fast-moving grassfire would eventually destroy 66 dwellings.
asserted
grassfire → move → dwellings
The only certainty was that there wasn't any.
asserted
certainty → be → ?
Some houses and business were mangled, blackened wrecks, others stood undamaged beside them.
asserted
others → blacken → them
Lives were up-ended.
asserted
Lives → end → ?
But a wind change turned the flames away from the larger town of Castlemaine.
asserted
change → turn → Castlemaine
For Fiannuala, a lecturer in publishing and communications at the University of Melbourne, the day brought a "completely new awareness of risk".
asserted
day → bring → risk
…and 103 more, not listed.
The Aporia
