Plea to help the Marysville that’s a world away

Published 10:35 pm Saturday, February 14, 2009

A water-guzzling koala melted hearts last week, becoming the YouTube face of killer fires that devastated southern Australia.

In our hurry-up world, news of a faraway disaster goes by in a flash. To truly get our attention, it seems to take a cuddly critter. If you took time to closely read details of wildfires in Australia’s southeastern state of Victoria, you saw a familiar name — Marysville.

Until Feb. 7, Marysville, Australia, was a town of some 500 people about 62 miles northeast of Melbourne. With the worst brush fires in Australia’s history, the scenic town was wiped off the map. The Associated Press reported that more than 10 percent of the town’s population may have died in the blaze that destroyed Marysville, Australia, a week ago Saturday.

As of Friday, the death toll from hundreds of fires that swept Victoria state Feb. 7 was 181 and likely to pass 200.

It’s not only a hurry-up world, but a small world.

When Dennis Kendall, the mayor of Marysville, Wash., came to work Monday, he had e-mail with the subject “Marysville, Australia.” The message, from David McKinlay of Melbourne, began: “Dear Mayor Kendall, I found your Web site accidentally when searching for Marysville, Australia.”

After explaining about the fire that leveled the “much-loved hillside town,” McKinlay suggested that perhaps people in Washington’s Marysville could help those suffering so far away.

McKinlay wrote, “As your city shares the name of Marysville, I wonder if your City Council might be able to publicize to your citizens the efforts of the Red Cross to raise funds to assist the homeless survivors of these terrible fires?” His message ended with thanks, and a link to the Web site of the Australian Red Cross.

It’s a small world, indeed.

When Kendall forwarded the e-mail to Doug Buell, the city’s spokesman, Buell knew it wasn’t the first time Marysville here received word of the Australian town. Buell quickly found a 1994 letter from a man in Marysville, Australia, along with a collection of travel brochures. The town that shares our Marysville’s name is — or was — in a vacation area, near Lake Eildon and the Lake Mountain ski area.

In the mid-1990s, Buell said our Marysville was looking into a possible sister-city relationship with Marysville, Australia. The city spokesman had been quoted in a 1995 article from the Appeal-Democrat newspaper in Marysville, Calif., about other cities that share the name. Our Marysville, by the way, was named for Maria Comeford, wife of James Comeford. The Irish couple became landowners in the 1870s after James Comeford was sent by the government to be an Indian agent on the Tulalip Reservation.

Curious about Marysville, Australia, Buell swapped information with people there. The towns never became official sisters, and Buell has never been to Australia. Always interested in the area, he still has travel guides showing its forested beauty.

In his e-mail from Melbourne last week, McKinlay said he often vacationed in Marysville, Australia, and last year stayed in a 1920s guest house called Marylands. “It was destroyed,” he wrote.

The day of the killer fire, McKinlay said, the temperature soared to 115 degrees in Melbourne. “This was more than a brush fire. It was a fireball rolling down the mountain,” McKinlay wrote.

In cool, wet Marysville, Wash., Buell hopes people will hear pleas from the Marysville that is no more.

“Our hearts are very much with the people of our namesake town, and to all the people in the Victoria area whose lives have been devastated by the horrific bush fires,” Buell said. “Goodwill and support can come from any corner of the world, and across any distance, to people who need it.”

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.

Red Cross helps

The Australian Red Cross has established the 2009 Victorian Bushfire Fund to help people devastated by recent fires. For information or to donate online, go to www.redcross.org.au.