FLEEING HELL
TWO STATES PREPARE TO WRESTLE THE DEVIL
AN EXTRAORDINARY armada of good Samaritans in runabouts has come to the aid of stranded bushfire victims in scenes reminiscent of the wartime Dunkirk evacuation.
The daring rescues and ferrying of supplies across the water from Ulladulla to isolated communities came as exhausted firefighters desperately spent the day clearing overgrown fire trails and backburning ahead of today’s horrific conditions.
“It’s going to be a bad day,” RFS deputy fire commissioner Bob Rogers warned. “Very likely we will lose houses … but we will call it success if no lives are lost. It’s fair to say we will see some areas during the day reach that catastrophic forecast.”
An extra 650 firefighters, some from the metropolitan Fire and Rescue NSW will be stationed in 18 strategic locations around the state, to quickly jump on dangerous outbreaks, adding a “surge capacity” to the existing 3000 Rural Fire Service volunteers, Mr Rogers said.
Authorities are bracing for the deadly fires to race out of control amid 45C temperatures and 90km/h winds, particularly around Nowra, which will come under ember attack from the massive Currowan fire. There are also concerns about Penrith in Sydney’s west “which could become quite active and burn quickly” should a blaze hit.
A Bureau of Meteorology spokesman said today’s deteriorating conditions would be worse than New Year’s Eve because the southerly change won’t hit Sydney until midnight – meaning “more time for dangerous heat and wind across the fire sites”.
The mass exodus of tens of thousands of south coast holiday makers and residents continued apace yesterday as the beleaguered Princes Highway was finally opened, and police convoys led cars out of affected areas.
But many bushfire victims were stranded without supplies in the hamlets of Lake Conjola, Manyana, Bendalong and parts of Sussex Inlet, where fallen trees and powerlines blocked all roads in and out. Last night, 10,000 people were still without power.
In remarkable scenes that have been likened to the famed Dunkirk rescue which saw a host of boat owners cross the English Channel to pluck British troops off a French beach in 1940, generous boat-owners began running mercy dashes up and down the coast.
A flotilla of fishing boats, tinnies, kayaks and jet skis dropped off emergency supplies including water, food, gas cookers, blankets and nappies into the isolated towns and picked up women and children. The elderly were ferried in tinnies which made beach landings while jet skis carried mothers and their children to larger boats.
Ulladulla surfer Russell Bierke took part in the mercy dashes, ferrying food and water bottles on his jetski.
“We just want to see if we can do something to help, it’s all hands on deck,” Mr Bierke said.
The fishermen and recreational boaties who formed the citizen armada were hailed as “guardian angels” by 87year-old Dorothy Featherstone after she was lifted out of a charter boat.
“The crew are wonderful people who are helping their community out of the kindness of their hearts – they don’t expect anything back,” she said.
The Rural Fire Service has warned residents in zones such as Nowra, where temperatures will peak at 44C, not to change their minds at the last minute.
“We’ve unfortunately seen people caught in cars and that’s fatal and that’s only a little bit better than being caught on foot,” Mr Rogers said.
The latest RFS fire maps show Nowra, with a population of 30,000, directly in the line of the Currowan fire, which has jumped the Shoalhaven River and is likely to be hit by embers.