18 January 2003 firestorm - Mount Stromlo stories

Jessie Christiansen

I was a summer vacation student at RSAA during January 2003 and, as such, had only a brief time at the beautiful Mount Stromlo Observatory before it was destroyed by the fires. The eight summer students were all very excited to be there; we would drive up from the campus college every day, through the swathes of green pine forest, eat our packed lunches on the lush green grass in the courtyard of the administration building, watch the kangaroos helping themselves to their own lunch nearby, and generally take everything in with an air of wonderment and anticipation.

I had been working on a sky-monitoring camera with Bruce Peterson and Brian Schmidt, to be located in the small green shed near the 30” Reynolds Telescope. When I had finalised my decision to move to Canberra to start my Honours year with the RSAA, I needed somewhere to store my car-full of belongings which I had driven down after the Christmas break. Bruce kindly suggested the 30” telescope, which was not in use, so on January 18th 2003, while I was on a college trip to Batemans Bay for the day (a whole other story...), seven boxes of my clothes, books and cumulative life paraphernalia were nestled snugly in the base of the Reynolds Telescope.

When we finally arrived back on Saturday night to the news that everything down to the road behind the college had been evacuated and we had better pack our bags because we would be the next to go, we settled down, as people in a crisis situation do, to watch the grisly action unfold on the several channels of live news coverage (remember when Princess Diana died?). Needless to say, when the flyovers of Mount Stromlo began to be shown, along with the stunning words that 'Canberra's historic Mount Stromlo Observatory has been destroyed by the fire', all I could see were the burnt-out telescopes, the end of my dreams of studying astronomy and also, of course, the loss of a life's worth of belongings.

Thankfully, as most people are aware, it was not as I suspected. The people of Mount Stromlo were determined to get back to work, and Paul Francis was quick to contact the incoming Honours students and inform them that yes, we could continue with our plans to study with the RSAA. Also, thankfully, the Reynolds Telescope (the dear old thing) was one of the only telescopes on the mountain not to be breached by the fire. The insulation inside the dome caught fire due to the extreme heat, and of course the delicate telescope optics and electronics were ruined by said heat, but down on the bottom floor, the only evidence of fire was a layer of ash over my boxes, and a very very bad smell due to the burnt insulation. I was very lucky that day, and I have to admire the strength of the people who were not so lucky, but who pulled together and came out the other side as better, stronger people.