Panic…panicking…panic-struck. Again, I can smell smoke drifting in through the window. The fires never seem to stop. It has been ten days now.

I remember again, last thursday, the fire is at the back fence. It is hot and smokey. I am grabbing things from inside the house, shoving them into bags. They're things I think I might need, things that might be important. Actually, I'm not thinking at all. Fear has taken over. It's instinctive.

I'm in my library. What books to take? Two walls are lined with book shelves. There are more stacked on the desk, and on the floor. There's never enough room for my books. What should I take? What should I save from the fire? I want them all. But I've only got seconds to decide. I want a particular book – a family history – where is it? I can't see it? It should be here, at this spot. But it's not. I grab two books, don't even look at them, but feel they are the right ones. I shove them in a bag, then run out of the house, throw them into the car.

It is at that moment that a fireman puts his hand on my shoulder: “Will you stay or go?” he asks. “Stay, I want to stay” I say. I don't go back to the library. All the books will be saved because I'm staying.

Later on, I bring back the bags from the car. I wonder what I have a taken. Family photos, a passport (expired), some jewellery, my wallet. No clothes, no food. Its all very light, easy to carry. Except for two books. One is the family history. The other is Ostpreussen in 1440 Bildern. They are both heavy and awkward to carry. Bloodlines, and unremembered memories. It seems a strange collection of things to face the future with – a collection chosen by instinct in a moment of dread. Trepidation has made the choices, not thought. But perhaps there is a logic in the instinct?

At first I think “material things – they don't matter – when you really have to chose, it suddenley all seems meaningless – the books are just books”. My cats and chickens had been saved by someone else – that mattered. But choosing which material things to save didn't seem to matter at the moment when choosing was most pressing. Later, however, the collection of odds and ends does matter – something beyond rational thought made me choose some things but not others. They are not just odds and ends – they are a survival kit of some sort.

What they had cost bore no relationship to the choices. It seems to come down to things to do with identity, with not forgetting who I am or how I have come to be. Personal things. Family photos, family history – they are the genealogical remembering; passport and things in wallet – documents to prove identity to others; jewellery and wallet – money for food, clothes and other things in the future: – the odd and ends begin to make sense. It just leaves Ostpreussen in 1440 Bildern – a heavy book, a type of remembering, or perhaps a bridge to another time-place. Somehow, it has come with me. I can't escape it.

Bushfires have been raging through the Blue Mountains for over seven days, all around my home. Yesterday, the fire front reached my back yard. It had broken through two containment lines. These lines encircle the town, concentric defences against attack by wild fires from the bush or forest.

I had never realised this before, but yesterday I saw the lines very clearly, and saw the fire coming upon each one, sometimes in a great rush, a huge wall of fire, roaring and flaming many metres skywards, with confusing clouds of smoke swirling everywhere; at other times silently dropping little embers from the sky on the other side of the line, each one flaring up and staring a new fire unless quickly extinguished by the firefighters. After a week of constant assault people are tired and wary: the fire is capricious and unpredictable, always lurking, probing, being beaten somewhere but gaining ground somewhere else.

I was standing on the roof yesterday, the worst day, when I suddenly saw the lines of defence, running through the forest and around the back of houses and yards. Why hadn't I seen this before?

The containment lines of the Blue Mountains – the 1st, 2nd and 3rd positions of Königsberg: the enemy is different, but their weapons not dissimilar. As the flames and smoke raged along the back of my yard, trying to break in and mercilessly destroy all in its path; as the firefighters ran around the house, training hoses on the flames, in the heat and noise and smoke I began to panic. I thought I was prepared, ready for whatever would happen, strong enough to withstand it. But, just for a few minutes, I was overcome by fear, primal and raw.

Then a fireman put his hand on my shoulder: “Will you stay or go?” he asked. “Stay, I want to stay” I said – a decision made in an instant, or an earlier decision reaffirmed. The words cast aside the panic, I was back. I joined the fight, spraying water, searching for the little spot fires, extinguishing them. And then it was done. The flames quenched. Just the acrid, searing smoke was left. The fire fighters moved down the street to continue the battle, I was left standing alone in the garden, watching and spraying water.

In terms of an outcome, it was no Königsberg. But in terms of continual assaults, of defences crumbling, of staring into the face of the enemy, of desperate fear – as I stood in the smoking garden, stunned but adrenalin still pumping, the Lady of Königsberg was with me. I had survived. I was safe. But I had been for a little while in both 2006 and 1945, bridged by panic and fear.