Drought forces firefighters to use treated sewage to battle massive NSW fires
With water scarce in drought-ravaged northern NSW, firefighters battling massive blazes have resorted to using treated sewage to douse the flames. PLUS residents tell of their heartbreak at losing their homes and farms to the fires.
NSW
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How do you fight a fire when you don’t have any water?
With the drought drying up the usual sources, such as rivers, creeks and farm dams, firefighters have turned to treated sewage as part of their firefighting arsenal.
In a rare move, 600,000 litres a day of Tenterfield’s grey water from showers and toilets has been made available to be pumped into fire trucks to use on the fire at Tenterfield.
It is one of several extraordinary measures being deployed as the state faces the worst-ever start to a bushfire season.
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Others include enabling fire trucks to be filled directly from bores, and semi-trailers carting water to keep fire trucks filled.
Fire and Rescue NSW had also trucked in six water tankers carrying 13,000 litres of water each to Tenterfield by yesterday.
The Bureau of Meteorology last week forecast the remainder of the year would be hotter and drier than usual, exacerbating the water shortage and tinder-dry landscape.
Asked if firefighters in rural areas had enough water to combat bushfires effectively, Emergency Services Minister David Elliott said: “In drought-affected areas, the obvious answer is no.”
The state’s first new firebombing plane, the Marie Bashir, unveiled last month, has already been used 30 times, including at Tenterfield.
Without the 737 Large Air Tanker on hand, firefighters would likely still be waiting for a firebomber to arrive from the US, as has happened in past bushfire seasons.
The Marie Bashir has been making 60-minute round trips from Tenterfield to Coffs Harbour to fill up with 13,000 litres of fire retardant.
The plane can travel anywhere in NSW within an hour, and strategically placed rural airports have been fitted with tanks of retardant and high-volume pumps so that the whole state is covered.
At towns where firefighters rely on rivers that are currently running dry, the state government is retro-fitting pumps so fire trucks can be filled directly from bores.
At Warren, where firefighters are expecting to run out of water completely when the Macquarie River dries up “in the near future”, plans are being drafted to fit bores with the same size hoses needed to fill fire trucks, according to Regional Town Water Supply co-ordinator James McTavish.
The state government will also replace any water taken from farmers’ dams to fight fires, which is sorely needed to keep livestock alive.
In a bid to conserve water, firefighters will also increase their use of “dry firefighting techniques”, such as using bulldozers and graders to cut fire breaks and slow the movement of the blaze.
FIRE DESTROYED MY HOME IN MINUTES
Steadying herself against the burnt husk of a palm tree, one of the few things still standing, Penny Stanbridge yesterday surveyed the rubble that a day before had been her family home of 23 years.
It took just 20 minutes from when Mrs Stanbridge first saw the bushfires approaching her Tenterfield property, in the state’s northwest, until the double-brick house was reduced to a tumble of bricks and tin.
She had been preparing lunch on Friday when she saw smoke a few kilometres away.
“I made a call to triple-0 at 3.10pm, then a police officer came round to my house and yelled at me to ‘leave now’,” Mrs Stanbridge, 71, said.
“By 3.30pm I was watching the fire from my friend’s place and saw my house completely destroyed.”
The property is one of four houses and two businesses razed by the flames.
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Volunteer firefighter Neville Smith is also fighting for his life after being injured in the bushfire.
More than 450 firefighters, 170 fire trucks and aircraft have been deployed to the fires and reinforcements have been brought in from as far as Sydney and Canberra.
Two major blazes rapidly moved on Tenterfield, 700km north of Sydney, and a third between Coffs Harbour and Armidale, due to winds gusting up to 90km/h.
Mrs Stanbridge’s home, recently valued at $650,000, is the worst-damaged property. Historical artefacts she had collected her whole life have been destroyed.
She said: “There was a blunderbuss from the 1700s and a drill from the 1800s my late husband used to build the home. It is all gone now.”
Her son Ross, 51, lives at the family property in Stanthorpe, over the Queensland border, but kept his valuable vintage cars at the property.
“I had a 1906 Cadillac and a 1926 Vauxhall in the shed,” he said. “Counting all the cars we lost about $250,000.
“More than that, the Cadillac is very sentimental. My dad died 11 years ago and when he was cremated I put his ashes through the engine and blasted him out on the property.”
While three family cats also perished, the house was insured and Mrs Stanbridge said she was lucky to have a place to stay. “Ross has been living at our home in Stanthorpe so I’ll just move in with him,” she said. “I guess he will annoy me now.”
The fires were so fierce on Friday and yesterday that they started to create pyrocumulus clouds, known as firestorms, which hovered over the nearby ranges spitting lightning onto the ground.
It was at the height of the blaze that Mr Smith, 66, was badly burned on his face, head and hands and flown to hospital in a critical condition.
He was battling a grass fire at a farm owned by a local councillor on the edge of town when a sudden gust of wind whipped the flames back onto him.
“Neville was alight. His trousers had burnt up to the knee. I thought he had shorts on,” councillor Bronwyn Petrie said. “His face and hair had been singed and his back had been singed where the coat had been alight, but his hands were severely burned.”
As Maria Kelly escaped her nearby property, she saw Mr Smith being driven to safety by other volunteers.
“He was in a bad way, sitting in the front seat. The fire was absolutely devastating,” she said.
The fires burned through more than 9000ha around Tenterfield and Ms Kelly, 57, only just managed to escape as the blaze bore down. She said: “As I was driving down the road there was fire on both sides. It was terrifying.”
Mrs Kelly and her husband David, 57, returned home to inspect the damage yesterday. Mr Kelly said: “There would have been hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of excavator equipment that has been destroyed. That is all insured.
“I’m pretty gutted about my motorbike. I’ve had this bike since I was 17 and the shed is still smouldering so I don’t want to open it as something might explode. We’re going to truck through this, we’re not the only ones affected and we’re both OK. Everyone in this town will stick together and get through the worst of it.”
The fire whipped around the town of about 4000 people, jumping roads and skipping over the near-empty dam.
The Bureau of Meteorology expects conditions to ease today. BOM forecaster Helen Reid said: “We still will have a high fire danger, but it is a slight improvement on yesterday and Friday.
“There will still be strong winds, generally around 40-50km/h, you can expect stronger gusts. These winds will drop temperatures, lowering the danger.”