Pictures of the Year: A Picture and its Story
Nancy Allen and Brian Allen stand outside their home as high winds push smoke and ash from the Currowan Fire towards Nowra, New South Wales, Australia, January 4, 2020. Reuters photographer Tracey Nearmy: "Covering Australia's sparsely populated regions is difficult. And when the bushfires started this summer, getting there was tricky. After a day of travelling, I found myself in smoky red haze face-to-face with Nancy Allen in Nowra, New South Wales. Nancy and her husband Brian, dressed in a singlet and shorts, were trying to defend their home with a garden hose. The fire bearing down on their town was so intense, it was creating its own pyrocumulonimbus storm, and the police had evacuated the area hours earlier. Yet, Nancy and Brian stayed in the swirling smoke and ash, anxiously wetting down the front of their house. Mistaking me for an emergency crew, Nancy rushed over to ask me what they should do. Given that the suburb had already been evacuated, I told them to follow the advice to go to the closest evacuation centre. Their home was close to dense bushland, so it was worrying to see them still on their property an hour later. Nancy's expression in this photograph summed up the shock and disbelief many Australians felt at the ferocity and enormity of these fires." REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy/File photo SEARCH "POY STORIES 2020" FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH "WIDER IMAGE" FOR ALL STORIES. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
