Firstly, I (still at age eleven) was babysitting a seven year old and also house-sitting in a house in the Blue Mountains, N.S.W. while the entire hippie population of the shared house were out. It was one of those blazing hot days which Australia specialises in, and we were playing in the front yard when I noticed smoke billowing out through the open front door. I ordered my young charge to stay put and went to investigate. After taking a good lungfull of fresh air, I crept in far enough to establish that most of the kitchen ceiling was on fire, centring around the gap where the stovepipe went through the ceiling. I backed out again and raced over to the next door neighbour for assistance, assuming she'd call the Fire Brigade. More proof of the stupidity which even women are capable of manifested itself when she grabbed all the hose she had; about six feet. She handed it to me and told me to follow her.

We went back into the by now very smoky building and she persuaded me - grown-ups can be very persuasive - to follow her right into the kitchen and stand with her underneath the burning particle-board ceiling, which was bulging downward alarmingly and blackened from the flames in the ceiling cavity above: I can't stress this enough; we were standing right under a fire! I don't think I've ever been so frightened in my life, but I held the hose to the kitchen tap while she used the totally inadequate pressure from a near-empty rainwater tank to aim a pathetic stream of water up at the ceiling.

The fire scorned her efforts and roared alarmingly. The ceiling bulged some more, and I sensibly lost my nerve and ran for it. By this time I was angry enough from sheer terror to demand that she ring the Fire Brigade, which having no-one to hold her little hose for her, she reluctantly did.

They arrived after about ten minutes, got even more furious with her than I had, and promptly drowned the large, historic, beautiful timber building and the furnishings with it. They saved the house, but the tenants came back to a right royal mess. Apparently, a rats' nest had been built around the stovepipe in the ceiling (rats like to keep warm too), and the rusty stovepipe had sparked it alight, and taken the tinder-dry ceiling with it. Now there's a woman who shouldn't be allowed to breed (she hadn't at that stage, as far as I know).

The second was during the massive 1977 bushfires in the Blue Mountains, N.S.W., Australia. This time it was, I think, the train driver who may have been stupid. I can only hope there was another reason.

My mother and I had gone to have a swim in the pool a few villages up the trainline, and hadn't been listening to the news, so were not aware of the fires. It was a very hot day, and after our swim, we got back on the train and she headed (as she thought) home, getting off at our usual stop, whilst I travelled into Sydney to spend the weekend with my father.

As the train progressed down the line a few stations, I began to smell smoke and see a yellowish colour to the sky. Then we arived in an area where the front of the fire had just passed through, but which, due to the inflammability of Eucalypts (gum trees), was still burning merrily. In the middle of this, we stopped; dead in our tracks, literally.

It was roasting in that carriage, and the last thing anyone was going to do was open a window. No air conditioning in those days. Didn't the train driver know he was driving into a bushfire in a place famous for lethal bushfires? Did he want to see one close up? I never found out. We sat there sweating and terrified for about twenty minutes before the train started rolling again. I made it to the yellow smoke cloud which was Sydney and breathed filthy air for days.

My mother, who had got out, unknowingly, into the middle of an inferno, made it to the top of our street before firemen, who had already evacuated the street, blocked her path. Eventually, after prisoners from the low security jail nearby had been roped in as 'volunteers' to check every house, and had obligingly put out spot fires in the eaves of our and our neighbour's houses (without which we wouldn't have had houses to come back to), she was allowed to go home, considering herself lucky to have one, since a total of 11 houses were cremated on that street alone. She cooked herself dinner on a burning stump in the front yard thanks to lack of electricity. There was no garden left, and a broom which had been leaning against the back wall was burnt half-way up the handle.

I know I won't get even an honourable mention for these stories; they're short on stupidity factor and, miraculously, no-one even gets injured: but I submit them because they've never failed to entertain whenever I've told them.

Submitted on 03/06/2008

Submitted by: Erica MacKenzie
Reference: Personal experience - 1976/1977

Copyright © 2008 DarwinAwards.com

Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Thanks for the stories, Erica. There certainly was plenty of stupidity in both cases, so I think a PA is appropriate. That woman who ran into the burning house with a garden hose is extremely lucky that the roof didn't collapse on her, and it's a good thing you lost your nerve when you did. The second story, while lacking Darwin style self-selection, certainly did demonstrate the stupidity of the train conductor for letting people off in such a dangerous area.

James said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Yes, Erica, they continue to entertain, halfway around the world (I'm in New York City, the OTHER fire capital of the world, though we get garbage fires more than brushfires)! We don't know for certain what the train engineer's motives were (he may have HAD to stop where he did in accordance with orders from the dispatcher, &c), BUT that woman next door to where you were babysitting certainly earned some serious stupidity points! I have to say, you displayed incredible pluck (not to mention intelligence and levelheadedness) for an eleven-year-old! Good PA, the readers should enjoy it! Thanks!

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