In the first week of December, Sydneysiders inhaled the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes a day of bushfire smoke. Air quality plummeted to levels lower than the most polluted parts of China, and the concentration of cancer-causing PM2.5 particles soared to ten times the normal level. On December 11, anger boiled over as an estimated twenty thousand marched, swathed in smoke, to protest Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s disinterest in the disaster.

A little less than a week earlier, all three of Sydney’s container ports ground to a halt.

Wharfies had been suffering eye and throat irritation for several days before they ceased working, Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) organizer Shane Reside says, and they were beginning to rotate shifts more often and take more frequent breaks. On Thursday, December 5, air quality sank even lower, and westerly winds pushed smoke over the portside eastern suburbs. With terminal management only providing face masks that worker health and safety reps — and experts — deemed ineffective, wharfies refused to unload ships.