When Rachel Ireland woke up on the morning of November 25, 2015, nothing seemed out of the ordinary – nothing but the wind.
By the end of the day a bushfire would ravage the mother-of-four’s South Australia community, leaving her family without a home and taking the life of a dear friend.
When Rachel and her children left their home in Hamley Bridge while her husband David fought the fire, they just took a change of clothes and some pajamas.
‘I thought worse case scenario we’d have a sleepover and be back in the morning,’ Rachel, 33, told Daily Mail Australia.
Rachel and David Ireland, and their four children, lost everything in the horrific November 2015 bushfire that ravaged parts of South Australia
Their home was completely destroyed, with only a shot glass, a makeup bag, and a Matchbox car surviving the blaze
But when Rachel dropped off her children at school that morning, it was almost as if she and the other parents had a premonition.
‘The wind was just insane from the get-go in the morning,’ she said. ‘It was just enough to unnerve you.’
‘We were all talking about the wind at the school drop-of,f and some people were saying “Oh gosh, it wouldn’t be a good day if anything got lit up”‘.
A couple of hours later, Rachel spotted a small patch of smoke 60km away in Pinery.
David, a volunteer firefighter, was out battling the blaze. He told Rachel it wasn’t looking good.
Although the family was not in a bushfire zone, Rachel felt a growing sense that something wasn’t right.
‘I was listening to the radio and they suggested that the wind could change and push the fire toward Hamley Bridge,’ she said.
David, a volunteer firefighter, was helping fight the blaze while Rachel evacuated her children from the home and tried to keep them calm as she drove to a relative’s house
‘Once I heard that it was, “Nope, I gotta go”. I would rather be well away from it and have David know we’re safe.’
Rachel grabbed her ‘go bag’, filled with important documents, but forgot that a USB stick filled with all of the family’s photos was still in the computer.
She had taken it out that morning to update the flash drive, but it completely slipped her mind as she picked up her children and saw smoke from the driveway.
‘I knew we were running out of time, it changed really quickly,’ Rachel said. ‘When we saw that smoke shifting it was go and go now.’
‘But I thought we’d be coming home in a few hours after it passed. I didn’t think at the end of the day that we wouldn’t have a home to go to.’
As they headed toward Kapunda, where her aunt lived, Rachel tried to keep calm her children Makaede, 10, Izak, eight, Jacob, six, and three-year-old Blake.
The fire killed two people that spring and injured 16 others, as well as damaging 35 homes
Rachel said nothing seemed too out of the ordinary that morning except for an ‘insane wind’ that had made her nervous on the unusually warm day
A murky and dark wall of smoke was forming, and when they pulled up to her aunt’s driveway Rachel noticed red embers falling from the sky.
‘That’s when my daughter said, “Are we going to die today mum?”‘, Rachel recalled. ‘Inside I was screaming, it tore me to pieces because that was playing through my mind.’
‘But I smiled at her as cheerily as I could and said, “No, not today. We’ll be alright, it’s fine.'”
Rachel and her family began driving north, away from the fire, where she soon lost phone service – and all contact from David.
But right before their channel of communication got disconnected, he revealed to Rachel that their house was gone.
‘It was like my chest had just constricted and all the oxygen just ran out,’ Rachel recalled. ‘I thought, where am I going to put my kids to sleep tonight?’
Rachel and David later appeared on This Time Next Year and pledged that they were going to rebuild their family’s home
‘I never thought, at the end of the day, I wouldn’t have a bed to lay in, I wouldn’t be able to put my kids to sleep in their beds. It was very much, what do we do now?’
But first the family had to get through the fire, and the painful hours without any word from David.
Those five hours of silence was made even worse when Rachel heard over the radio that a volunteer firefighter had been killed in the blaze.
‘You don’t even want to entertain the thought, because if it’s not your husband it’s someone else’s,’ she said. ‘On the plains, everyone knows everyone.’
When Rachel finally heard David’s voice, after he climbed to the highest point so he could get some service and let her know he was okay, it was bittersweet relief.
‘You’re so relieved, but you know someone is going to be feeling that incredible heartache,’ she said.
The family turned around and drove through the ground that already burned, heading back so they could see David.
‘Once you’ve found out that you lost everything you worked hard for, all I wanted to do was be in my husband’s arms,’ Rachel said. ‘At the end of the day, that’s all that matters.’
Through it all, Rachel said her children were ‘absolute superstars’.
Rachel said she completely threw herself into getting her family’s home back up after the fire
It took 11 months for workers to completely rebuild the home and make it livable once again
‘At one point I got really flustered and a bit disoriented from the smoke and my son said to me “It’s okay mum! Teamwork, we’ll get through this together”‘, she recalled.
‘They were my reason to stay calm. I didn’t hide the truth from them, I told them about the reality of what was going on, and they were superstars.’
It took seven weeks before Rachel could walk into her burned house, where the only things that survived were a shot glass, her makeup bag, and a Matchbox car.
At the same time Rachel was battling symptoms of PTSD and suffering anxiety attacks after the fire
Among the sentimental items she lost were her parents’ original wedding photos, trinkets from her late grandparents, and the footprints from her childrens’ births.
‘I was stunned more than anything,’ she said as she recalled walking back into the home. ‘I was pretty numb.’
‘It wasn’t until maybe four or five minutes after that it started sinking in. I had no idea where to go from there.’
‘I just felt that my job as a mum was to provide a safe environment for my kids, where they can sleep and have a bath and clean clothes, and I had nothing.’
And Rachel was devastated when she heard the news that her friend Janet Hughes, 56, had perished in the bushfire along with the volunteer, 69-year-old Allan Tiller.
Sixteen other people were injured during the fire, which destroyed 35 homes total.
In those first few months it wasn’t the house that Rachel was crying for, but the friend that she would never get back.
‘I cried a lot for Janet, for her husband Andy, for their son and what they were going through,’ she said.
‘They don’t get to rebuild, they just have to move forward. I feel guilty every day knowing we got to rebuild, and that was our way of healing, but there was nothing we could do to help them.’
Rachel’s family was dealing with their own struggles. Her children had nightmares about the fire, and she was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
‘I was so focused on bringing my family home and making sure they were okay and adjusted, and I’d forgotten about myself,’ she said.
‘It wasn’t until I fell into a screaming heap that I thought, maybe I’m not as okay as I thought I was.’
Although their home is now complete, the family said it remains a daily reminder of the fire
And still the family focused on rebuilding their home, wanting to show their children that ‘it doesn’t matter what life throws at you’.
‘It was always home, this property is where everything has happened for us,’ Rachel said.
‘I miss that house, and I’ll never be able to recreate it, it was just where everything started.’
‘But it was important for us to show the kids that you can go home and life continues on after that.’
They rebuild the house in 11 months, but when David was offered a new job in a new city, the family made the painful decision to leave their beloved home behind.
And as much as they love the property, Rachel think it could be a fresh start for the family.
‘The children still get anxious, especially with the weather warming up – it makes them nervous,’ she said.
‘We don’t ever forget what had happened, it is there daily. It’s not a bad thing, but I think being away for awhile is a good way to heal.’
‘We can move forward and be comfortable being here one day again.’