Name: Daphne Fowles

Age: 75
Occupation during 1939: Child. Her father and pregnant mother lay over Daphne and her three brothers to try to protect them as the fire went over. They all suffered critical burn injuries.
Age at time of fire: 10
Location of interview: Kinglake

"It was absolutely unbelievable how things transpired. Dad went into work, but he knew there was something wrong because the bushfires were turning the sky black."

I’d just turned 10, my older brother had just turned 12 and it was Billy’s birthday, he was seven. I had a younger brother Jimmy, he was three, and my Mum was seven months pregnant with Smoky – he came later.

We lived at Jeeralang, out from Morwell, in the bush. My pa was a woodcutter. On the day of the fire it was absolutely unbelievable how things transpired. Dad went into work, but he knew there was something wrong because the bushfires were turning the sky black, so he came home. Our house was up on a hill, and luckily he parked the car down on the road. We mightn’t have got down through the fire if he’d parked the car up on that hill.

Mum had Billy’s birthday cake in the oven, and Dad said to her, “I’ll go up on the hill and just see where the fires are”. We knew there were fires, but we didn’t know where, you see. My brother and I went up with him and you could see it, it was miles and miles and miles away. We weren’t particularly worried, so we came back down.

"Mum bent down to the stove to look at the cake and this ball of fire came through the window and the house just exploded."

A little while later we were back in the house and Mum went to the stove. She bent down to the stove to look at the cake and this ball of fire came through the window and the house just exploded. Have you ever seen a ball of fire? Well, a ball of fire can travel. It might be something off a tree and it stays alight, and it can go for miles, and that’s what came through the window. It was unreal. We were standing there because Mum and Dad were talking, and it hit the window, there was an explosion, and the house went up.

As soon as it came through the window everything was on fire, and poor old Mother, all she thought about was the cake. I shouldn’t laugh, but all she thought about was the cake. I can’t repeat what my father said, but they just grabbed us and we got out of the house.

Little Jimmy, three years old, he wanted his bear. It didn’t matter about the fire, he just wanted his bear. We couldn’t find it, and it was just a case of getting down to the car and getting away, we thought. But we didn’t know the fire had come so quick. It can be unbelievable. It can be here one minute and be miles away the next.

My Mum might have been a city lady, but she prepared right. She had a tub of water outside and there were blankets and towels and everything, and they wrapped us up the best they could.

"We couldn’t open the car doors because they were too hot. Dad came back and got us out. Mum and Dad more or less covered us with their bodies to stop us from burning too much."

We were up on the hill and we had to go down the side of the hill to the car. We got down to the car, and we had to go through this cutting in the road, where they had cut through a little bit of a hill to make room for a road. There was a steep bank on the left and a bank on the right. Once we went through this cutting, it was all fire. There was nothing else but fire.

The next thing we knew, the car went off the road. We couldn’t open the car door, and Mum dropped Jimmy on the burning log. It burned his hands really badly. She got him up onto the road and Dad grabbed the younger brother Billy from the front seat. He thought we were following him, but we were in the back seat and we couldn’t open the car doors because they were too hot. Dad came back and got us out and we got up onto the road. Mum and Dad more or less covered us with their bodies to stop us from burning too much.

We must have been crying for water, and there used to be a house on the other side of the cutting, so Dad said he’d go back there and see if he could get help. So he went back, and the house was full of men from the bush. They’d all got into this house, and they stayed there.

"They wrapped us up in blankets, and they shouldn’t have done that. It was unbelievable, just sitting there, watching the skin curl off your body."

In that situation you do things, and you don’t know whether they are right or wrong. They wrapped us up in blankets, and they shouldn’t have done that. It was unbelievable, just sitting there, watching the skin curl off your body.

I was burned up to the thigh and right up the arms. My face was a little bit burned, but that was okay. Mum and Dad, their burns were terrible, terrible, terrible. The burns on one side of my leg caused the sinew to contract, which made me a cripple in a wheelchair. After we were burned and they got us to hospital, I didn’t see my Mum or Dad for two months. I was in hospital for the next 12 months, and Mum and Dad were in there for six.

When I was allowed to go home from the hospital for a little bit, these people took me out to their place to nurse me. I remember they had turkeys. Don’t ask me how or why or what happened, but I got out of the chair somehow or other and I broke all these sinews on the side of my leg. Back in those days, they put you in plaster when you got burned, so they cut the plaster off and put it back on up to my hip. After they took it off I could walk again.

"Dad was bad, real bad, and gangrene had set in. So they put maggots on the flesh under his arms."

That was one big score, but Dad was bad, real bad, and gangrene had set in up under his arms. This doctor who was at the Sale hospital was an army doctor, and he said, “If it works in the army, it will work here”. So they put maggots on the gangrenous flesh under his arms.

But Mum wasn’t so far gone, and when they asked her if they could use the maggots on her she said “No way”. All she was thinking of was her baby – she was seven months pregnant with Smoky. She said no, but with Dad they did it anyway and it saved his life. He had trouble in his arms for years, but still he was alive.

A couple of months later, Mum landed up with our baby, and for years and years she went into hospital. She had skin grafts. They took muscle off the back of one leg to put on the side of the other, but everything died, nothing worked. Today they would be able to do something different. She had ulcers all her life, right until the day she died. Her legs never, ever healed from it.

The burns ate in so far. I’ll show you how it burns in. See how the burning charcoal has eaten craters into the scars on my legs? That’s horrible, isn’t it? That’s why I only wear pants, rather than dresses or anything. The charcoal is stuck in there. These are the sinews that contracted. Both my legs are the same.

And kids can be cruel when you go to school. Back in those days, I did wear a school dress. I would go to school and my legs would be black. There is no other way to say it - my legs were black. The kids used to chase me home, and tell me to have a wash. They were dreadful.

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Read more about the horrific, life-long affects of burn injuries in the Aftermath section

Read more about the post traumatic stress on survivors of natural disaster's in the Aftermath section