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On 7 February 2009 Sergeant Roger Wood found himself at the epicentre of the worst bushfire disaster in Australia's history. Black Saturday.

Wood, who's a country cop with twenty years experience—and also a raucous, meditating, horse-riding vegan—was the only officer on duty in the small community of Kinglake. As the firestorm approached he was called out to numerous incidents including multi-fatality car accidents. He led a group of fifty people from a store west of Kinglake four kilometres to safety through burning bush. Minutes before it was completely destroyed.

Then, as the fire raged around him, he phoned his family ten kilometres away to warn them what was coming. When his wife answered, she screamed that the fire had already hit their property. Then the line went dead.

Black Saturday was a many-headed monster in whose wake stories of grief, heroism and desolation erupted all over the state of Victoria. This book is about the monster—and the heroism of those who confronted it.