Fireflies

The smell of smoke and Lost River is enveloped in an eerie haze. Newcomer to the town, Lill, is anxious. Her husband Perry is at work and she is out alone on their 25-hectare once weekender. She doesn't know how far away the fire is and doesn't want to look a fool by calling for help.

Lost River is in recovery from a devastating fire that nearly took the lives of some of their best firefighters and local farmers. Perry struggles to come to terms with the loss of his home, while Lill and his daughter Taz rival for his attention. Meanwhile, tension mounts between Joey and Fifi over Fifi's actions concerning their baby.

Gossip is spreading like wildfire through town about the fire brigade officer Eris Parsons shooting his dog. Eris and his wife Luisa aren't around to set the record straight, they've gone into hiding. Seems like everyone in Lost River has something they're trying to escape from. Svettie is trying not to drown in her problems.

One of the realities of living in the bush is making the best out of a bad situation, which Lill and Perry are learning to do fast. Their shed has been overrun with rats, Perry is working on rebuilding their dream house after it was destroyed by fire and Lill struggles to meet an urgent work deadline in the surrounding chaos. It seems the world is conspiring against her.

Backa and Svettie each have a vision for their financial future. Unfortunately, they are vastly different. And they are both about to make a deal with the devil. Svettie wants to invest in a marijuana crop with Sharpie but for now, she's keeping it a secret from her husband. Sharpie is less than thrilled with the prospect of going into business with an inexperienced mother of two.

Fifi has to deal with her unpredictable brother Hank who has just returned from prison and has a different story to tell to everyone he meets. But it's Fifi he's most interested in and when he visits her at work she's again reminded of what a different person she's become since he left.

The Lost River rodeo could be the last throw of the dice for Backa and Svettie's shop. Stocked up for their biggest annual trading day, they hope to pay off their immediate debt and avoid the bank foreclosing, but the news of fires down south keeps Backa and Svettie stretched between hope and despair. Confronted with imminent failure, Backa finally tells Svettie about his deal with Uncle Jeff.

In a last bid attempt to save her failing shop and keep her family together Svettie has borrowed a large amount of cash from a loan shark. But she's keeping it a secret from Backa, telling him the sudden injection of funds has come from the sale of some milking machinery stored in their back shed. Now they're on easy street, for a while at least. Backa and Svettie have the best day they've had.

It's the summer solstice and the fourth anniversary of the death of Jeff's teenage son Damien. It's always been a long day for Jeff and today is no different as he wakes with a feeling of dread and sadness. Things only get worse when Damien's old girlfriend Fifi arrives at the house to present Jeff with Damien's battered old guitar which she's held on to for all this time.

In the midst of the Lost River Christmas carols, Backa gets a call. Section 44 has been declared in Shoalhaven and Backa is asked to join a strike team traveling down to help fight the fires. Despite Svettie's unease and Carter's misery at his father leaving, Backa decides to take a crew. It doesn't take long to find volunteers. Lill is suddenly ready to sign up too.

After battling huge fires down the south coast, the firefighters return to Lost River. They might have been away for Christmas but they're determined to make up for it when they get home. Joey is on a mission, looking for steady work. He finds a job as a deckhand with the owner of a fishing trawler. After a few nights out at sea the two men bond and Joey gets some invaluable advice from his boss.

Lill's newly published children's book arrives and she prepares to test it out on the kids of Lost River. Surrounded by children at play and talking through issues of motherhood with her female friends, Lill is forced to confront her desire for a child. But it's Perry who brings the matter out into the open when he asks Lill an important question about their relationship.

Lill and Svettie have been living it up at Lill's children's book launch in Sydney and are on a road trip back to Lost River. As the two women bond, Lill reveals information about herself that shocks Svettie and she begins to see Lill in a new light. Meanwhile Hank Sharp has also returned from Sydney, only this time he's not alone, with him are two dodgy-looking mates.

Fifi has a new job at the Fire Control Centre and Joey is already doing the maths working out what sort of property they could buy with the extra money. For now, though, they'll have to put up with living at the Sharps with little privacy and dealing with Hank on a daily basis. When Fifi takes a call about a factory fire, the Lost River brigade is quickly called out.

Backa dusts off his suit for a lunch meeting with the golf course developers. What Backa doesn't know is that they need 40ha of Uncle Jeff's property for their prospective resort. Backa is surprised to find an old school friend, Sam O'Donnell in attendance. Sam is consulting as a lawyer for the group and has been enlisted to get Backa to convince Jeff to sell.

Peg is back. Escaping from her nursing home, she makes a beeline for her house only to find it's been rented out to the new doctor and his family. When Peg lands on Lill's doorstep, Lill decides to champion her cause, but she doesn't know what she's let herself in for. Peg's not happy, so it's tantrums all round when she avails herself of Lill and Perry's, then Backa and Svettie's hospitality.

For Svettie, the little Russian housewife come, drug dealer, life is about to take a drastic turn. An old business acquaintance, Kim Porter, turns up and convinces Svettie to invest in aquaculture development. Believing she's ultimately securing a future for her family, Svettie finds the confidence to revisit Val, the 'Lender of Last Resort', who gives her the $25,000 to invest in the venture.

Perry's moved into the mudbrick house and Lill is happy about that or is she? During a drunken phone call with Perry's ex-wife, Lill realizes her relationship may really be over. Then the unraveling starts as her happiness turns and reality starts closing in. Can she live without Perry? It's another hot day and a fire has started in the Tuza State forest.

Lost River's very existence is threatened in this gripping episode of Fireflies. Fearfully, Backa watches the fire trucks roll into Lost River. Backa believes that it is less than 24 hours before the fires reach the village, and he expects they'll come from the west as well as the predicted front to the east.

The fire front is racing into Lost River, it's much bigger than they thought and the water pressure has failed. The trucks are going to have to relay back and forth to the dam at Sharpie's to refill, and when they discover that Suzie's place is burning inside the roof, Backa has to make a difficult call. No one said fighting fires on your own doorstep was easy.

In the final hour of Fireflies, days have passed since the fires. Everyone is trying to return to normal and clean up the damage, but it's not going to be easy. Lill tries her hand at spinning. She has a few CWA ladies over for a spinning session nothing more meditative or calming until Perry arrives and shocks her with the news that he's changed his mind.