Barging into face of fire’s fury

THE local West Pittwater volunteer firefighters’ antique barge collected me shortly before 7am yesterday. It was the start of bushfire season and we were off to fight the first fire in our area.

Fire chief Roy Adams had called 20 minutes earlier to check my availability. Roy scared up three others - Paul Cats, Susanna Clerc and Roger Springthorpe. He picked me up in the barge, the Margaret Molloy, named for a constant pillar of community support, and turned up Pittwater for West Head and the base of the fire in Little Pittwater Bay on the Hawkesbury River. Like its generous namesake, the years are catching up on this 8m vessel. Its aluminium hull is softening with electrolysis and water is trapped in the double-hull, adding extra weight and causing the big black Mercury outboard to scream as Cats, who was at a Macedonian wedding in Dundas till 3am, pushes it across the still water. As in most volunteer organisations, the need to meet adversity has created a rich diversity. Cats has a coxswain’s ticket and is sometimes found behind the wheel of the local ferry or water taxi, even down on Sydney Harbour. Atkins is an electrician. Springthorpe works with marine invertebrates at the Australian Museum. Clerc is a teacher. The Margaret Molloy was due to be replaced several years ago. Officers in cleaned and pressed uniforms had discussed needs, brought plans, agreed on minor changes and promised delivery of a purpose-built craft with a powerful pump and room to carry a crew protected from the elements. The latest word according to the minutes is that those plans have been put on hold because brigades in more rural areas have even more pressing need for essentials - like boots. The promised boat seems to have evaporated, and unless the Margaret Molloy can be patched (yet again) the brigade’s effectiveness will be severely curtailed. This is not unusual. There is a disconnect between headquarters and little units like ours, which require a modicum more thought than any Rural Fire Commissioner has yet displayed. In our region, fire trails are extremely limited and boats are the standard transport. This has not yet been fully appreciated by the politicians and the brass, who continue to send new vehicles to grace the brigade’s fire sheds. At Little Pittwater, the Scotland Island fire boat has already started its pump and a crew is working its way up the steep side of the West Head peninsula on the southern side of the fire. We throw out an anchor and nose in, a hidden rock catching and shearing a propeller blade before the bow is close enough to run the hoses ashore. There is no beach, just oyster-covered sandstone boulders the size of cars. After encasing the first 5m of canvas hose in a protective sleeve to shield it from the razor-edged oysters, the rest of the hose is hauled up the northern side of the fire, with new lengths being fitted. This is a game for the young, but the average age in our small group is probably closer to 50 than 40. Hauling hoses stiff and heavy with pressurised sea water up a near-vertical hillside is wearying work and our small water bottles are soon emptied. But the work is rewarding. The fire in our zone is contained and damped down. Unfortunately our hoses won’t reach any higher and the straining pump won’t deliver. A helicopter arrives to take over above us but it is clear that it cannot cope as the fire is fanned by a freshening wind. The embers deep in the blackboys and the corky bark of the banksias glow and burst into new flames which run across the leaf litter and out on to the branches of stunted eucalypts where they ignite oil-laden vegetation. The helicopter’s bucketfuls of water seem to make no impression as they spray down, and soon it has to return to a base for more fuel, giving the fire an opportunity to roar away unchecked. In the early afternoon, Roy’s wife Lisa braves the chop of the Hawkesbury River mouth in her open tinnie to bring food and two fresh firefighters to replace those who have other things to attend to. The fire is way beyond the reach of the brigades in Little Pittwater now and the crews may be needed to help the communities at Mackerel and Coasters Retreat. The fire has jumped the West Head Rd and weekenders have been asked to leave the Basin camping ground and the fire is on the heights above Currawong, once the pride of the trade union movement, now the plaything of the NSW ALP and Planning Minister Frank Sartor. The wind is gusting over 50km/h, there is nothing the volunteers can do until the fire immediately threatens the homes tucked into the fold of the Western Pittwater foreshore beneath a grey-yellow blanket of smoke. Experienced residents are cleaning their gutters and raking fallen leaves away from their homes, making sure valuables are ready to be loaded into boats should the wind change through the night and bring the fires down on them. On the water, a stream of ugly plastic gin palaces laden with gaping sightseers creates a confused sea of unruly wakes, tossing the firecraft around as they relieve the tired crews and ready supplies for those who will stand by through the night. The water-logged Margaret Molloy is slowly nursed to her Elvina Bay mooring, her broken propeller barely making way against the gusting winds. And as the sun sets, the pungent smell of burning eucalypts perfumes the new summer evening.