‘Just going in blind’
A Marlborough firefighter says he’s ‘‘going in blind’’ as he’s deployed to bushfires raging in Australia.
Roland Mapp, who was flown to New South Wales yesterday, was the third Marlborough firefighter deployed to Australia.
He doesn’t know where he will be based, what he will be doing, or how long he will be there. All he knows is that he’s going in to relieve exhausted firefighters.
Twenty-six New Zealand firefighters left for Australia yesterday to help fight the wild fires that have been raging in NSW since the start of September.
The New Zealand contingent of six four-person crews, one task force leader and a liaison officer, were to arrive in Sydney on Sunday evening, before being deployed to fires around the state.
These crews were in addition to the around 25 New Zealand Fire and Emergency personnel already in Australia assisting with air attack, heavy machinery, safety and deployment co-ordination.
Large wildfires have been burning in both Queensland and NSW for the past nine weeks. As of Friday morning there were near 70 active bushfires in NSW.
Mapp is the deputy of the Northbank rural fire brigade and had been on the wait list for the past 10 days.
‘‘It will be good to finally get over there,’’ he said on Friday.
‘‘I’m just going in blind really . . . it’s like every fire, every fire is different, you don’t have any expectations. You just go and you do the best you can when you’re there.’’
It would be his first time fighting fires in Australia which was ‘‘a whole different ball game’’ to New Zealand fires, he said.
While his family were used to him working away, he said his 12-year-old daughter was ‘‘a little bit anxious’’ about him heading over.
Fire and Emergency principal rural fire officer John Foley said while the scale of fires was much greater, Kiwi firefighters were trained for the challenge.
Foley said Marlborough firefighter Chris Hayles flew to NSW on Thursday to take part in ‘‘air attacks’’. He would manage a number of aircrafts and would be given a sector of the fire to manage from the air. Alister Neal was deployed to Queensland last week to work as ground crew.
They could be given any tasks from frontline firefighting, mop up, to assisting community with evacuations, Foley said.
‘‘We’re not going to put these fires out for them, but if we can give a firefighter a break, if we can get them off the line and home to their family for a week or two, then we’ve probably done our job.
‘‘Some of these firefighters have probably lost houses and they’re not even aware of it.’’
He said some of the fires were so big they were creating their own weather patterns and causing lighting strikes. ‘‘It’s on a scale we would never see here.’’
But in the later summer months, and as Marlborough dried up, they became cautious about sending crew abroad, Foley said.
‘‘We start getting a little bit reluctant on sending crew as we dry out in January and February.
‘‘Marlborough itself will probably be too dry for us to want to deploy too many people.’’
He had recently been on a training programme in Australia where another participant had said they had recorded 7 millimetres of rain in 5 years.
‘‘A lot of these places just haven’t had any significant rain for a long time and looking at the next three months, there’s no real significant rain for a lot of those places.
‘‘We’re only in the beginning of the fire season. It’s not looking good at this stage,’’ Foley said.
Marlborough firefighters put endurance to the test on Saturday in a gruelling challenge against the clock and their regional colleagues. Wearing full gear and a breathing apparatus set, firefighters lugged weights, sprinted up stairs, sprayed hoses and dragged dummies in an attempt to win ‘‘bragging rights’’. About 50 firefighters from Seddon, Wairau, Blenheim, Renwick and Woodbourne along with Nelson, Takaka, and Akaroa suited up for the Provincial Firefighter Combat Challenge. The challenge, called the Firefighter Ironman, is known for being the toughest two minutes in sport. There were ‘‘guest appearances’’ from local Civil Defence and St John teams, who also attempted the course. Woodbourne Brigade firefighter Gordon Munn was competing on Saturday, after returning from ‘‘Worlds’’ held in Montgomery, Alabama, in October. Munn said Worlds was ‘‘very similar’’ to the event held in Blenheim, but with a bigger tower. ‘‘It’s pretty much the exact same course.’’ Munn said the Airforce had put a team together, with members from each base.
The competition’s challenges included climbing a tower and carrying a 19-kilogram hose. Competitors then hoisted a hose coil up the tower, before sprinting back down the stairs and smashing a beam with a shot hammer. They finished the challenge by knocking down a disc with water from a fire hose and dragging an 80kg dummy for 30 metres and over the finish line. One of the organisers, Jen Ruffell, said they would hold a prizegiving at Blenheim Station on Saturday night, which was for ‘‘100 per cent bragging rights’’. Ruffell said firefighters used the provincial challenge to gauge where their fitness was at to make sure they were ready for a full event. ‘‘For firefighters coming today, it’s about testing their own fitness. It’s also about fun, camaraderie and utilising firefighting techniques. ‘‘This is sort of our bread and butter, this is what we do.’’