Actually, bush fires are only seemingly destructive in nature, as it were. These periodic surface fires are, in point of fact, incredibly normal and necessary in the perpetuation of a healthy forest ecosystem. An agent of disturbance, combustion sets into motion the regeneration process for some fire-adapted species – some of the eucalypts, banksias; they don’t even spread seeds until a fire like this comes through.

The fires itself feeds on a litter layer of leaves, debris, and humus, and is a beneficial way of assuring a healthy bionetwork by the elimination of competition for soil moisture and nutrients from fire-sensitive and shade-tolerant species. Importantly, fire also acts in the recycling of nutrients; stimulating new growth, and as a sanitizer; terminating outbreaks of insects and parasites.

Mind you an awful lot of little skinks and things like that that aren’t going to survive a bush fire like this. But that, in all its harshness, is life - or, more correctly, the deduction thereof.

“Here’s a little fellow that wouldn’t survive,” Glen was saying, plucking up a stick from the path of the flames.

“A walking stick. A little herbivore. You get some really big ones here too, of course. But this is just a little one.”

He gave the insect an affectionate look, "we want to keep him out of the bush fire if we can." He gave a quick look around, "ah, we’ll let him go down here.”

He walked over and freed the twiggy creature on a fairly sized tree on the other side of the track from the fire. Even if the fire did make its way to this side, it would pass right under the tree.

“Let’s hope he’s out of harms way.”

The vastly un-mighty, and really in fact quite wimpy, Pascoe River was our next stop. Literally. Well, the plan, in inception, was good anyway. Execution was an entirely different matter. It was lunch, and crossing the river I spotted a pleasant little sandbank where we could stop to enjoy our snack. “Perfect,” I thought. I shifted the car off the track and aimed for the sandy patch. My one tactical error, and I realize this a little too late, was that the sandbank was a direct tell to what lay under the water. Namely, sand. Lots of it. Steering the Land Rover over to the bank, I was immediately shown the miscalculation. We made it half way up, stopped, and the rear of the car sunk. “Uh oh,” I thought. I backed up, but this only seemed to make things worse. I tried again to go forward, but this resulted in the front of the car sinking to accompany the back in the sandy chaos.

“Glen, I think we have to get the come-along out.”

The situation was still not that bad. I mean, yeah, we were stuck. But we still had the hand winch to pull ourselves out with.

We drew the winch out, hauled it over to a tree on the bank of the river and attached the wire around its base. I walked the other end of the cord back to the bumper of the car. Then we fumbled around for a few minutes to figure out how the thing worked.

“Where does the handle go,” Glen asked.

“I’d imagine into there,” I said, pointing to where it should correspond.

“Nah. Doesn’t fit, mate.”