Clip description
Dimpel’s camera has captured the grim red circle of the sun masked by thick bushfire smoke and the landscape cast in an eerie deep orange. The fire creeps down Farrer Ridge towards the Dimpel family home, but, as Dimpel observes in voice-over, there are no fire fighters or fire trucks in sight.
Curator’s notes
Strong winds on the morning of 18 January 2003 had heightened the risk of the bushfires encroaching on homes and posed an immediate threat. What we see here is the point in time when, in the mid afternoon of 18 January, much of Canberra was clouded in semi-darkness as the bushfires engulfed bushland surrounding Dimpel’s home on the edge of the Ridge.