I run down the eucalyptus tree as fast as my body will allow me. Reaching the bush floor I run in the direction that I came from not too long ago. The air is still thick with smoke from the fire, although some of it has cleared slightly now, carried by the wind that was helping the fire along its destructive path. I have to get back to my home trees. I hear voices of some of the local people approaching, my senses tell me these are here to help my kind, but they can not help me. My joey that has been inside the pouch for the past six months and that has recently ventured out to start her life has gone from me. I feel the cold on the underside of my fur, the emptiness that has been created by her absence is almost too much for me to bare. I followed other koalas just like me all with their little ones attached as they did their best to race away from the flames. It grew too hot too quickly and the smoke that came with it was thick. It was so hard for any of us to breathe. I watched more and more struggle the further we ran. I watched as some couldn’t travel any further, their lungs no doubt burning from the same smoke that was filling mine and my joeys. I don’t know when she left me, all that I know is that she is gone and all that was on my mind was fleeing. I can see the people now, some are stopping and picking up my kind who like me have lost everything now. Our home has been destroyed in seconds. I run past them, careful not to slow down from the fear that they might take me away from the search for my joey. The floor of the bush is scorched and still warm as my paws tread across it. There are baby’s just like mine all around some in the arms of the rescuers and some laying on the ground, no one can help those ones, the fire too much for them and their tiny bodies. As I run past the bodies though I can tell none of them are her. It’s not just the young that have perished in this disaster. The bodies are numerous as I near closer to where we fled from. I see the true devastation that the fire has left in its wake. My home in these trees around me will not be here anymore as these trees are burned and blackened by flames and smoke alike. It’s hard to breathe still but I am desperate. The need to feel my joey pressed against me again is like a need I have never felt before. I round what’s left of some of my home eucalyptus and I see a small grey lump in the ground. She is there, I see her. As I grow closer I can tell that things are bad for her. Her once all grey fur is now singed in parts. A small grey lifeless body lay flat on the floor surrounded by burnt earth. My heart breaks as I get to her. My one joey was gone. Whatever could have caused this bush fire me and my kind will never understand, but this pain that I feel, that’s what I understand. No rescue persons will help me with my joey. I lay my paw in her side...... a breath. One small breath that leads into two, and another. My joey is still here. Our home is gone but now with her at least there is hope.