While some plot twists may seem a little overused or predictable, I found the second episode, in particular, to be quite emotional. It captures the essence of searing grief with a brilliant performance from Miranda Otto. The pace of the series itself might seem a bit slow, but I'd argue it allows for an authentic narrative to be conveyed, staying true to the slow and horrifically inevitable nature of these fires. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
21 Reviews
Moving series
caitlinknight-9122621 November 2021
As a former firefighter I was very curious in the portrayal of the 2019-20 'black summer' in this ABC mini series. I will state my bias at the beginning in that I love to support Australian film and I am not a fancy critic. I can however offer some insight on the firefighting side.
Cons -Melodramatic. Very melodramatic, but then it's not a documentary, it's a mini series and that's why we're watching it-a form of dark entertainment, to learn, see things from a different perspective.
-Range of acting abilities and some great cast members but also some developing ones.
-A couple of the episodes drag on with the thriller aspect.
-Some one dimensional character portrayal in a handful of characters.
Pros -This mini series gives a good idea of so many perspectives of the people. From the firefighters, to those who decided to stay back and fight, to the recovering addict waiting on his methadone to those who were down the coast for a holiday thinking the fires would burn themselves out.
-It gives good insight to the many competing priorities during emergencies, on the ground and in the emergency command offices. The stress (while at times overblown and magnified by the dramatic aspect) goes part of the way into conveying some of the fear felt by everyone involved.
-While it is melodramatic, some people in the review section have stated how ridiculous it is that some of the firefighters stopped and had a swim at the end of the day. I can state from experience that whether or not it's ridiculous, it happened at the start (some water points are too good to ignore and the end of the day does come). No one could predict the seriousness of the situation as the summer progressed.
-Young love does sometimes blossom like that shown in Mott and Tash (I'm living proof).
-Once you've witnessed a pyrocumulus in action, you know how totally out of control and minuscule we are to stop it. This mini series gives some insight to the bushfires of that horrendous year. Whether or not people accept the science, scenarios like this are becoming more frequent and more extreme.
I would love to see more film come out capturing the Australian spirit like that found in this show.
Cons -Melodramatic. Very melodramatic, but then it's not a documentary, it's a mini series and that's why we're watching it-a form of dark entertainment, to learn, see things from a different perspective.
-Range of acting abilities and some great cast members but also some developing ones.
-A couple of the episodes drag on with the thriller aspect.
-Some one dimensional character portrayal in a handful of characters.
Pros -This mini series gives a good idea of so many perspectives of the people. From the firefighters, to those who decided to stay back and fight, to the recovering addict waiting on his methadone to those who were down the coast for a holiday thinking the fires would burn themselves out.
-It gives good insight to the many competing priorities during emergencies, on the ground and in the emergency command offices. The stress (while at times overblown and magnified by the dramatic aspect) goes part of the way into conveying some of the fear felt by everyone involved.
-While it is melodramatic, some people in the review section have stated how ridiculous it is that some of the firefighters stopped and had a swim at the end of the day. I can state from experience that whether or not it's ridiculous, it happened at the start (some water points are too good to ignore and the end of the day does come). No one could predict the seriousness of the situation as the summer progressed.
-Young love does sometimes blossom like that shown in Mott and Tash (I'm living proof).
-Once you've witnessed a pyrocumulus in action, you know how totally out of control and minuscule we are to stop it. This mini series gives some insight to the bushfires of that horrendous year. Whether or not people accept the science, scenarios like this are becoming more frequent and more extreme.
I would love to see more film come out capturing the Australian spirit like that found in this show.
Hang In There With This One
CakeOD3630 October 2021
I started the watch because it seemed like an interesting concept. Will admit that it took a couple of passes to get through the first episode. Familiar with several shows like this I stuck through it.
All of you "experts" can pontificate about how this indicates some inherent flaw that is worth avoiding the offering completely. I'll just tell you that me working through this early challenge leaves me eager for the the next episode. PEOPLE are complicated especially through extraordinary challenge and I'm now completely onboard for this ride.
All of you "experts" can pontificate about how this indicates some inherent flaw that is worth avoiding the offering completely. I'll just tell you that me working through this early challenge leaves me eager for the the next episode. PEOPLE are complicated especially through extraordinary challenge and I'm now completely onboard for this ride.
Off to a good start
glenn-5486730 September 2021
I thought the acting, direction, effects and story we're all really captivating. I really like these types of shows that focus a lot of energy on the character development and dialogue. Realistically probably an 8 so far but thought it needed a bump up.
Raw and emotional
hotkate23 October 2021
I came across this mini series by accident, and was immediately drawn into it.
If you are looking for a Hollywood blockbuster about saving lives, you'll be disappointed. If you are looking for a drama about how real people had to survive during devastating bush fires, and see how different people react to the situation, it looks like it's the perfect show.
Families freaking out, but trying to keep their kids calm Emotions flying all over the place People wanting to leave the community refuge centre to see if they still have a home Parents realising they'll be spending Christmas day amongst bush fires.
Kids wondering how Santa will get to them during the bushfires.
This show is raw and full of emotion. I felt the pain they felt.
I'm now looking forward to seeing the next episodes of this fantastic Australian drama.
I would not recommend watching this with a bowl of popcorn of chips, but a glass of water and some tissues.
If you are looking for a Hollywood blockbuster about saving lives, you'll be disappointed. If you are looking for a drama about how real people had to survive during devastating bush fires, and see how different people react to the situation, it looks like it's the perfect show.
Families freaking out, but trying to keep their kids calm Emotions flying all over the place People wanting to leave the community refuge centre to see if they still have a home Parents realising they'll be spending Christmas day amongst bush fires.
Kids wondering how Santa will get to them during the bushfires.
This show is raw and full of emotion. I felt the pain they felt.
I'm now looking forward to seeing the next episodes of this fantastic Australian drama.
I would not recommend watching this with a bowl of popcorn of chips, but a glass of water and some tissues.
Calm before the storm
jamesmoule14 October 2021
After three episodes, I think that I am getting the message from Tony Ayres. Other reviews seem to miss the point. Very few people predicted what the fires were going to be like. We have always had bush fires in Australia. The RFS has fought them with a fair degree of success. What those fire fighters faced in 2019-20 was, to use the word of the year, "unprecedented".
The young fire fighters in the first episode were behaving like typical teenagers until they came face to face with the reality of surviving. I found this episode to be the best so far, not knowing whether or not they would survive.
The uncertainty of knowing where loved ones were and the loss of communication was the focus of the second program. I found this part a little too slow. I felt like I was living the experience in real time.
Property owners in the third part were typical of people who have been told how to prepare their homes in the event of a bush fire. As with the fires in Victoria a few years earlier, the fires were too intense for preparation to make any difference. I thought that the ending was not satisfying.
This series has exceeded my expectations. "The Newsreader" was a hard act to follow on Sunday nights but "Fires" has proved to be a worthy successor.
The young fire fighters in the first episode were behaving like typical teenagers until they came face to face with the reality of surviving. I found this episode to be the best so far, not knowing whether or not they would survive.
The uncertainty of knowing where loved ones were and the loss of communication was the focus of the second program. I found this part a little too slow. I felt like I was living the experience in real time.
Property owners in the third part were typical of people who have been told how to prepare their homes in the event of a bush fire. As with the fires in Victoria a few years earlier, the fires were too intense for preparation to make any difference. I thought that the ending was not satisfying.
This series has exceeded my expectations. "The Newsreader" was a hard act to follow on Sunday nights but "Fires" has proved to be a worthy successor.
First episode was a slow burn
rayclister30 September 2021
I was in two minds as to whether I really wanted to spend too much time on a disaster movie while we are still in the middle of a pandemic
The first act of the kids on the beach showed how life was normal before disaster strikes. A not uncommon treatment used on movies like these
However the situation that followed was not successful in portraying the obvious horror that ensured.
Maybe I'll give episode 2 a look but not impressed so far.
Maybe I'll give episode 2 a look but not impressed so far.
So far good
janetteso17 October 2021
I really like this series. I thought there were scenes in the first few episodes that were riveting and true, particularly scenes depicting people stuck or seemingly lost in the Australian Bush on back roads at night with fires blazing all around.
However, I can't watch the AWFUL shaky camera it makes me car sick so don't know if I'll be able to watch all episodes sadly! :(
However, I can't watch the AWFUL shaky camera it makes me car sick so don't know if I'll be able to watch all episodes sadly! :(
One of the low points of Australian Television
boydpeters25 October 2021
I'm guessing the writers of this contrived drivel, have never seen a fire. Never been to the country, never spoken to a fire crew. Maybe they've held a sparkler or two on New Years Eve in Newtown
I feel embarrassed for those who are, and live in fire prone regions, at the portrayals of everyone in this diabolical series. CFS/ RFS must be screaming at the tellie watching this.
It is so poorly written, so horribly acted, so widely relayed to actual fires, that it hurts to watch. The triggerwarning does not go far enough
The continuity is unbearable. The lack of professionalism in that is unacceptable and makes a mockery of the suspense they are trying to create. Episode after episode - 5 minutes reading the script and a work experience kid would note the many glaring errors that needed to be corrected, and that are for crucial narrative points
This series is a how to NOT do it. And it has very little to do with "fires"...which don't seem to present much of a threat to life...everyone gets out alive.
If I were a writer on this I'd want my name off of this.
We watch it to laugh at it. We don't go more than a minute to have another head scratch moment or laugh at the screen moment.
What's sad, is that it had real potential. But for god knows what reason, the producers and writers had to make this a human intersonal angst drama. I truly would prefer to watch an episode of Patrol Boat.
The depth if this writing is not even that of the bushfire episode of Skippy from 50 years ago
With the budget, audience and what they had to work with, how could they have gotten this so wrong?
I feel embarrassed for those who are, and live in fire prone regions, at the portrayals of everyone in this diabolical series. CFS/ RFS must be screaming at the tellie watching this.
It is so poorly written, so horribly acted, so widely relayed to actual fires, that it hurts to watch. The triggerwarning does not go far enough
The continuity is unbearable. The lack of professionalism in that is unacceptable and makes a mockery of the suspense they are trying to create. Episode after episode - 5 minutes reading the script and a work experience kid would note the many glaring errors that needed to be corrected, and that are for crucial narrative points
This series is a how to NOT do it. And it has very little to do with "fires"...which don't seem to present much of a threat to life...everyone gets out alive.
If I were a writer on this I'd want my name off of this.
We watch it to laugh at it. We don't go more than a minute to have another head scratch moment or laugh at the screen moment.
What's sad, is that it had real potential. But for god knows what reason, the producers and writers had to make this a human intersonal angst drama. I truly would prefer to watch an episode of Patrol Boat.
The depth if this writing is not even that of the bushfire episode of Skippy from 50 years ago
With the budget, audience and what they had to work with, how could they have gotten this so wrong?
A lesson for all of us
Chapesco4 November 2021
Not a bad show
lighthorse-7803119 October 2021
The show is quite good and the producers and writers have done a good job at capturing the chaos and drama around what happened in the fires so far. The only gripe I do have is that they got aspects of which service was involved and car regos right for Queensland, but when it came to anything about NSW they didn't do their research. The car regos were wrong and the service responsible for Bushfires is the NSWRFS. Other than that it is good.
Great Australian drama series
bondcassie29 March 2023
I used to be mostly embarrassed and bored by our Australian serials but this is top notch drama. It is very perceptive and sensitive regarding the terrible experience of many Australians due to the recent and immense bushfires and it keeps the viewer enthralled throughout the series. I am so proud of so many new series that are made here as they are not only original but so well acted and directed. When I look at more USA's dramas they are just so repetitive and quite frankly dull although there are some brilliant ones but they are few and far between. Give recent Australian dramas a go, you will be surprised.
Fizzer
ozjosh0328 September 2021
The catastrophic bushfires of 2019/2020 have already acquired mythic status in Australia, with almost unbelievable stories of monster conflagrations, epic devastation and awe-inspiring heroism. So there was every reason to expect the ABC's Fires to be an appropriately epic and inspiring dramatic interpretation of those events. Unfortunately, the first episode doesn't rise much above Home and Away-level soap. The first fifteen minutes is nothing but mundane teen romance. The two lead characters are somewhat dull star-crossed teens, and hardly the best representation of Australia's brave and fearless volunteer firefighters. And nothing of any great interest happens until about 35 minutes into the 45minute running time. Maybe future episodes will do a better job of conveying the terrifying scale of those fires and the hardship and heroism that came with them. But this opening episode doesn't come close to doing justice to the real life events still seared in the nation's collective memory.
Home and away in a bush fire
robbierowlands3 October 2021
Takes melodramatic to a new
rosebx-603629 October 2021
.
daiu-0569413 October 2021
I was looking forward to this...but what a revisionist dud it is.
Rightly or wrongly, the RFS is about the most white, male, middle age organisation on the planet....but in the hands of the ABC it becomes a story about bossy fems with an entourage of tick a box minorities....rural NSW now looks like Newtown.....and sure enough, on investigation 4/5 of the writers are women....it's the equivalent of turning the suffragettes into a rugby team
To reapply a quote I recently read about the BBC....."an organisation so vehemently committed to diversity seems only capable of employing people with a very narrow metropolitan outlook."
Rightly or wrongly, the RFS is about the most white, male, middle age organisation on the planet....but in the hands of the ABC it becomes a story about bossy fems with an entourage of tick a box minorities....rural NSW now looks like Newtown.....and sure enough, on investigation 4/5 of the writers are women....it's the equivalent of turning the suffragettes into a rugby team
To reapply a quote I recently read about the BBC....."an organisation so vehemently committed to diversity seems only capable of employing people with a very narrow metropolitan outlook."
Very mixed
jononmars6 November 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Speaking as someone who went through this period I see this series as a mix of good, bad, and cringeworthy.
GOOD The slow development does an excellent job of building the sense of impending dread as skies darken and smoke builds. Actual footage was well integrated.
It also captured the bloody mindedness of some rural people who wanted to play the hero and stay and fight rather than evacate, and their misdirected anger directed towards emergency services and authorities dealing with the 200 days of rolling disaster.
I also liked the use of a QRFS crew to provide continuity between episodes.
BAD
Why were most of the general public characters so unlikeable? Unpleasant, self centred, pig headed, relationally dysfunctional. We needed a range of characters not just a negatively skewed representation.
The QRFS volunteers were portrayed as incompetent and unprofessional. Not matter how young and hormonal, volunteer fire fighters don't skive off in the middle of an operation for a romantic swim. Nor is it likely would a trained crew leader like Tash go to pieces in the middle of a burn over.
Fire fighters sent away on out of state deployments would be have experienced leadership, not the youngest people in the brigade.
Emergency services were shown as ineffectual, be they fire fighters or emergency leadership, when in reality they were very effective, saving hundreds if not thousands of lives, and thousands of of homes. People like Shane FitzSimmons, or the firefighters saving places like Nerriga or Balmoral?
CRINGEWORTHY
Episode 5's 4th wall breaking angry monologue about lack of leadership by one of the most selfish characters in the series was bad writing and unnecessary, especially when in the E6 episode when she is shown as a reformed character volunteering to be a firefighter, was perhaps the cringeworthy moment.
In short, don't bother.
See "A fire inside" instead.
GOOD The slow development does an excellent job of building the sense of impending dread as skies darken and smoke builds. Actual footage was well integrated.
It also captured the bloody mindedness of some rural people who wanted to play the hero and stay and fight rather than evacate, and their misdirected anger directed towards emergency services and authorities dealing with the 200 days of rolling disaster.
I also liked the use of a QRFS crew to provide continuity between episodes.
BAD
Why were most of the general public characters so unlikeable? Unpleasant, self centred, pig headed, relationally dysfunctional. We needed a range of characters not just a negatively skewed representation.
The QRFS volunteers were portrayed as incompetent and unprofessional. Not matter how young and hormonal, volunteer fire fighters don't skive off in the middle of an operation for a romantic swim. Nor is it likely would a trained crew leader like Tash go to pieces in the middle of a burn over.
Fire fighters sent away on out of state deployments would be have experienced leadership, not the youngest people in the brigade.
Emergency services were shown as ineffectual, be they fire fighters or emergency leadership, when in reality they were very effective, saving hundreds if not thousands of lives, and thousands of of homes. People like Shane FitzSimmons, or the firefighters saving places like Nerriga or Balmoral?
CRINGEWORTHY
Episode 5's 4th wall breaking angry monologue about lack of leadership by one of the most selfish characters in the series was bad writing and unnecessary, especially when in the E6 episode when she is shown as a reformed character volunteering to be a firefighter, was perhaps the cringeworthy moment.
In short, don't bother.
See "A fire inside" instead.
Painful
grflcarter11 November 2021
We lived through this and not once when the threat of fires came could we see blue sky. Smoke was so thick and the wind so strong and watching this was not as realistic as to what happened. There was no internet or phones and communication was non existent at the crisis moments. There could have been more actual footage to get the story across. I found that it was hard to watch and I tried to sit through all episodes hoping it would get better. There was the occasional moment when you could almost imagine being there but they very few and far between.
Ruined opportunity
stevelamprey-474141 November 2021
Inspired by real event but fails to get close to the real horror. Instead it preaches and inserts characters to to fulfil a diversity quotas, totally dishonouring the truth of what really happened lives lost and heroic deeds. Im sure the well know actors loved the wokeness of the writing but the public is getting sick of it being forced down out throats. A missed opportunity.
Live in a fire affected zone - Buxton NSW
gillmac-5201431 October 2021
Worse than the actual fires!
bac-6454427 December 2021
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
