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When Bushfire Strikes and the Phones Go Dead: A Castlemaine Resident's Ordeal Reveals Critical Communication Gaps

Fiannuala Morgan lost mobile service, emergency app access and radio reception as a grassfire bore down on her town; 66 homes were destroyed in nearby Harcourt

By LineZotpaper
Published
Read Time3 min
Sources2 outlets
During catastrophic bushfire conditions in central Victoria on January 9, 2026, Castlemaine resident Fiannuala Morgan experienced a cascading failure of the communication systems relied on for emergency warnings: her mobile phone lost service, the emergency app froze, she could not call or text her parents, the NBN failed with the power blackout, and the ABC broadcast tower at Mount Alexander burned down. A grassfire that eventually destroyed 66 dwellings in nearby Harcourt and threatened Castlemaine underscored what happens when the digital safety net collapses in a disaster, as detailed in a new report by Rhiannon Stevens and Kylie Silvester.

The day before, on January 8, the Country Fire Authority (CFA) had declared a catastrophic fire rating for the following day, describing conditions as "the most dangerous experienced this summer." One brigade in central Victoria posted on social media that 160 people died on Black Saturday in a similarly risky district.

Fiannuala Morgan, who was staying in Castlemaine (population around 7,000), had urged her parents to leave their property outside town. By 9am on January 9, the temperature had reached 31 degrees. "I was aware of this catastrophic rating but did not have an integrated sense of what that actually meant," she said. "Because when the fire started, it really went from zero to 100 in a matter of seconds."

As a ferocious hot wind arrived, the power went out. Morgan's emergency app lit up with multiple fires but then froze. "And then my phone stopped working, but not completely," she said. She could not call her mother or send a text. However, she could still call her brother in Melbourne, who then updated her via the VicEmergency app.

At one point she walked up a hill to try for reception. From there she saw a thick cloud of smoke turning the sky orange. Her brother told her the wind was pushing the fire towards Castlemaine. Back home, with no power and no battery-powered radio, she turned on her car radio to hear the ABC emergency broadcast, but "the broadcasting tower at Mount Alexander had burned."

Alone and with dwindling information, she drove to find her parents sheltering at a friend's house. Traffic lights were out and driving was erratic. Her parents also had patchy mobile signals and could not access emergency apps. "Sometimes you could use your phone and sometimes you couldn't," she said.

Emergency warnings to "shelter indoors now" were issued for Harcourt. The fast-moving grassfire eventually destroyed 66 dwellings. A wind change turned the flames away from the larger town of Castlemaine, but the incident has raised urgent questions about the resilience of communications infrastructure in bushfire zones. The article notes that one community has developed a plan for when mobiles fail, though details of that plan were not provided in the report.

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Analysis

Why This Matters

  • Residents in bushfire-prone areas may lose access to critical emergency warnings when mobile networks, the NBN and even broadcast towers fail simultaneously, leaving them isolated and reliant on patchy workarounds.
  • As climate change intensifies fire seasons, reliance on digital alerts (apps, SMS, data) becomes more dangerous when power and telco infrastructure share the same vulnerabilities.
  • The experience of a single resident in Castlemaine mirrors what could happen in many Australian towns, and raises questions about whether current public information systems are adequately backed up for worst-case scenarios.

Background

Bushfires remain one of Australia's deadliest natural hazards, with the 2009 Black Saturday fires killing 173 people and destroying more than 2,000 homes. Since then, emergency services have invested heavily in digital alert systems, including the VicEmergency app and Emergency Alert (which sends location-based SMS and voice calls). However, these systems depend on mobile phone towers and the electricity grid, both of which are themselves at risk during fire events. The NBN, Australia's national broadband network, relies on power at the premises and at exchange nodes, and fails during blackouts unless households have battery backups. Community-led solutions, such as local radio networks or neighbourhood communication plans, have been advocated by some fire authorities, but uptake is uneven.

Key Perspectives

Residents of fire-prone areas: They expect reliable, real-time warnings but are discovering that multiple layers of communication can fail at once, leaving them without information at the moment they need it most. Emergency services and the CFA: Their messaging relies on multiple channels (apps, radio, SMS, sirens), but they acknowledge that no single system is guaranteed. They encourage households to have battery-powered radios and a written bushfire plan. Telecommunications companies and infrastructure bodies: Providers argue networks are designed for resilience but accept that extreme fires can overwhelm them. The government's Mobile Black Spot Program has funded some tower hardening, but bushfires remain a difficult risk to mitigate fully.

What to Watch

  • Whether the Victorian government or the federal communications regulator reviews infrastructure resilience following this summer's fires.
  • Any expansion of community-led communication plans, such as the one alluded to in the report, to other high-risk towns.
  • The performance of backup systems like satellite phones, mesh networks or alternative broadcast methods in future fire events.

Sources

Zotpaper

Written by software from the reporting listed above, scored by an automated standards desk, and published without a person reading it first. If something here is wrong, tell the editor and it will be put right.

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