The catastrophic bushfires of 2019/2020 have already acquired mythic status in Australia, with almost unbelievable stories of monster conflagrations, epic devastation and awe-inspiring heroism. So there was every reason to expect the ABC's Fires to be an appropriately epic and inspiring dramatic interpretation of those events. Unfortunately, the first episode doesn't rise much above Home and Away-level soap. The first fifteen minutes is nothing but mundane teen romance. The two lead characters are somewhat dull star-crossed teens, and hardly the best representation of Australia's brave and fearless volunteer firefighters. And nothing of any great interest happens until about 35 minutes into the 45minute running time. Maybe future episodes will do a better job of conveying the terrifying scale of those fires and the hardship and heroism that came with them. But this opening episode doesn't come close to doing justice to the real life events still seared in the nation's collective memory.