‘Family’ goes to war with volatile enemy
“FIRE can be fickle.”
This bushfire season has pushed Rural Fire Brigades to their limits, with many of the volunteers putting in long hours to save lives and protect property.
Clagiraba firies have been among those battling blazes in the Hinterland and Second Officer Brendan O’Sullivan has warned people to remain vigilant because the bushfire season is far from over.
“It’s warmer than normal, there’s no good rainfall of late,” he said. “Often, come January and February we would probably be going into cyclone time and we’d be involved in flood work and things like that.
“I think this year the expectation of just about everyone who has a nose in the middle of their face is saying ‘yeah fire season is going to go a bit longer than normal’.
“Fire can be fickle, you get a wind change and the fire is going in a different direction and what was defendable is no longer realistitc.
“We’re all volunteers, there’s only a finite amount of people on the ground, each truck can only carry a certain amount of water and you’re not always going to have a firefighter at your door when you need one, no matter how much we try.
“It was busy for us, it was worse for the people going through it though. The most remarkable thing I took from it, and I spent a bit of time out in Canungra, the amount of people who had been impacted by fires, but were coming out and saying to the crews on the ground ‘are you all right?’ and bringing us food and drinks. They were the ones impacted, the resilience of the people floors you when you think about it.
“Lots of late nights, I did a lot of night shift stuff, a lot of the kids at the school where I teach at, were in areas that would have been impacted by fires, so it was close to home.
“You see stuff the day after and you think ‘crikey that was close’. What you see at night and what you see during the day, you just sit there and shake your head sometimes, because a lot of people were so close to losing everything.”
Mr O’Sullivan said the team was like a large family, looking out for each other.
“When you have a crew of two, or three, or four people, you’re not only working on the fire front, but you’re also looking out for each other, because if your crew’s not safe, you’re not safe.
“Sometimes there are calls you have to make that you would prefer not to have to, but if you’ve got to get out, you’ve got to get out. Luckily I didn’t get quite critical, but there were a couple things that were intense. The night at Sarabah, you could see the fire coming, but you can only wait for it. It’s hairy for 10 or 15 minutes and it’s passed and your mopping up.”
He said the agony of not knowing was often the toughest part for those who’ve had to flee their homes.
“There's the human side to it, ‘I’ve got everything in my house, I’ve got my family, a shed full of equipment, I want to stay and defend it’. You can understand why people would feel that way.
“I’ve been on fire grounds where the police had to remove people. If your place is defendable then stay, but I think those calls aren’t made lightly. If people say you’ve got to get out, then get out.
“Now part of that is having a plan in place. If you live in the suburbs then you probably don’t have one, but if you live at the interface of urban and rural, you need to think about it. It’s no good having something on the fly, or having a plan without trying it.”