Cherry Gardens fire: Crews ‘stood in bonfire’ and battled against rough terrain to protect homes and lives
As a fire front the length of three City-to-Bay runs threatened several towns, CFS strategic planners had to act fast to direct volunteers and authorities.
SA News
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As the mercury soared to 40C, Danny Jansen was enjoying a dip in his pool at his Cherry Gardens home.
But that momentary escape from last Sunday’s scorching heat came to an abrupt end when he and his wife noticed flames licking the top of a nearby hill.
“We just came back in from the pool … put on the telly and then looked out the window and it was like ‘there’s a fire out there’,” he said.
“And then there was another one and I was like, ‘what’s going on here?’. They all started very close to each other.”
Mr Jansen rushed to the phone and called the CFS, reporting the two fires. Another was developing at nearby Hicks Hill Road, he was told.
The fires around Cherry Gardens were creating a thick plume of smoke that rose prominently above the Adelaide skyline and could be seen all over the city.
For CFS incident controller Scott Turner, it was a portent of what authorities dreaded would come.
“The predictions showed us that this fire was going to be bigger than it was and go further than where we stopped it, we had real concerns that it would,” Mr Turner said.
The CFS feared the popular residential town of Stirling was at risk. But it acted quickly – and in numbers. Crews from Mount Lofty, the Murrayland, the Mid North and even as far away as Mildura answered the call to help battle the firefront.
“These people have walked out of their airconditioned home, their business, they’ve been out with family and friends and they answer the call, get their gear on and come to work,” Mr Turner said.
Air support was called in within 10 minutes of the fire being reported, as Mr Turner mobilised strike teams to tackle the developing blaze.
By 6pm on Sunday, 300 volunteers were on the ground fighting the blaze, which had a 27km perimeter, or the length of the City-to-Bay and back.
By Monday, it had grown to nearly 38km.
Thanks to a “large line of defence of firefighters making a stand”, the north side of the fire near Cherry Gardens was suppressed on Sunday night.
“There is no one factor in this one … it was heavy resourcing,” Mr Turner said.
“People came from the Mount Lofty Ranges, the Murray land, the Mid North.”
They battled crippling conditions as the blaze consumed the entirety of Scott Creek Conservation Park and more than half of Mount Bold Reservoir.
CFS volunteers, working at night in dense smoke, had limited visibility. They fought their way through dense scrub in steep terrain.
Mr Turner said it was like walking up Mount Lofty but with no path to follow and swamped by smoke.
“Most of this terrain is a water catchment – it’s very steep, heavily wooded terrain, there’s not tracks cut all the way through it,” he said.
With the area too dense and steep for fire trucks to access, crews entered on foot, carrying more than 20kg of extra weight in addition to hose packs, hand tools, breathing apparatus and other equipment.
“This fire was really taking off as it got dark, which is really uncharacteristic for the Mount Lofty Ranges,” Mr Turner said.
“(The heat) is like standing in the middle of a bonfire while the bonfire’s going.
“Our men and women are in two layers of firefighting gear with boots, helmet and gloves, standing on the edge of a wall of flames that was 60 to 80m high that go for hundreds and hundreds of metres in different directions.”
The blaze was close enough to Mylor that it dropped ash on cars parked at Mount Barker, 15km away from the fireground, Mr Turner said.
But the brave, arduous efforts of firefighters stopped the front and saved the town. In the CFS control centre in the city, state duty commander Yvette Dowling was confident crews were resourced to tackle the blaze but concerned its sheer magnitude and difficult terrain would be too much.
“We knew right from the outset it was going to be a significant event,” Ms Dowling said.
“It was clear we were going to have damage … we were praying for no damage and loss of life.”
As the fire began ripping through Mount Bold Road towards Bradbury, decimating Scott Creek, Mr Jansen was rounding up his family and evacuating.
By this point, the fire was less than 200m away.
“You know where you live and you know of the risks,” he said.
“Our main plan is just leave – you can sit there and fight it but the risk is too high.”
Mr Jansen, his wife, two young children and family dog Wizz evacuated to the Cherry Gardens Ironbank Recreation Ground.
“It’s concerning because that area hasn’t burnt for a long time,” he said.
Hundreds of people evacuated from Echunga, Mylor, Longwood, Meadows, Heathfield, Bradbury, Macclesfield, Kangarilla, Chapel Hill, Jupiter Creek, Cherry Gardens, Mylor and Clarendon as the fire burnt out of control on Sunday night.
They – like the Jansens – sought refuge at community halls, football ovals and with friends.
Ms Dowling said the area had not been burnt since Ash Wednesday in 1983, and lots of dried fuel was primed to go up in flames. “On Sunday, it was hot sitting outside doing nothing … it’s hard for people to understand the heat and pressure the volunteers would’ve been under,” she said.
“The heat and the noise would’ve been horrendous.”
The fire made another dash for Mylor between 5am and 7am on Monday, but was met with a “wall of firefighters” before being contained.
The massive operation succeeded in saving several towns and at least 60 houses that had been in the path of the blaze.
The dense rainfall on Monday was a Hail Mary for crews, and though it impeded the mopping-up process, it helped crush the remainder of the fire.
Mr Turner said the rain “dropped the fire intensity to allow us to put people directly in front of the fire”.
“When this was running, it would be like standing in front of 40,000-bar radiators, but when the rain came, it’s like standing in front of 10 or 20 of them,” he said.
Most road closures around the 38km perimeter of the fire were lifted on Monday night, enabling residents to return to their properties to inspect for damage. At least two houses were destroyed as well as another 17 outbuildings and sheds.
As they reflected on what could have been in Sunday’s fire, Mr Turner and Ms Dowling praised Hills residents, who heeded instructions, stuck to their fire plans and made battling the blaze much easier.
“Our fire crews didn’t have to second-guess whether people were hiding in sheds or homes, and knew they had plans to evacuate or defend,” Mr Turner said.
Ms Dowling agreed, saying it was a “good result because people were actually listening to advice and activating their bushfire survival plan”.
In the aftermath, Major Crime detectives discovered 10 ignition points – spots where the fire was believed to have been deliberately lit.
So far, police are aware of ignition points on Hicks Hill Road, Cherry Gardens and Dorsett Vale Road at Dorsett Vale.
A Hallett Cove man, 60, has been arrested and charged with intentionally starting a fire at Clarendon the same afternoon.
Pockets of fire will continue to burn for days – possibly weeks – and the CFS has urged people to remain cautious, despite the fact that the immediate danger is over.
The South Australian Veterinary Emergency Management (SAVEM) fears thousands of animals in the Scott Creek Conservation Park are dead.
But despite the sad losses, the Hills community has been left grateful it had been saved from another catastrophe.
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