NSW bushfires: Firefighter Samuel McPaul killed while fighting Green Valley blaze
The wife of the young father-to-be and volunteer firefighter, killed when a fire tornado upended his water tanker near Jingellic on the NSW/Victorian border, wants his crew to know “they did nothing wrong”.
NSW
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The wife of the young father-to-be and volunteer firefighter, killed when a fire tornado upended his water tanker, wants his crew to know “they did nothing wrong”.
Samuel McPaul, 28, was killed on Monday evening when a fiery “freak weather event” flipped an eight tonne Rural Fire Service truck outside Albury on the southern NSW border.
The newlywed firefighter embraced his wife, Megan, and “kissed their unborn child” before heading out to defend his community, a relative said.
“She is just so overwhelmed and concerned for the families (of the other crew members),” she said.
“She doesn’t want them to feel guilty. It was a freak accident, no one did anything wrong.”
The emotional relative, who asked not to be named, said Mrs McPaul was trying to process the grief but was “more worried” about the others at the scene.
“Sam was never left alone, it was over quickly but there was always someone with him,” the relative said.
She said the young couple, whose baby will be born in May, were “so in love”.
“Sam is an only child, his mum raised him,” she said.
“He gave so much to the community, he coached basketball, he gave so much.”
The nightmare blaze began when lightning struck in dry and rugged terrain outside Jingellic, near Albury, on Sunday night.
NSW Rural Fire Service crews and water bombing aircraft were unable to contain the blaze and it quickly engulfed dozens of hectares along the Murray River.
Superintendent Patrick Westwood said the rapidly expanding blaze created a pyrocumulus cloud eight kilometres in height on Monday.
“Unfortunately it seems to have collapsed during yesterday’s deteriorating weather and created erratic fire behaviour and erratic winds,” he said on Tuesday morning.
Mr McPaul was with the Culcairn North West brigade as they fought to save properties along the river.
Trucks had been pulled back from the danger zone and Mr McPaul’s crew had entered a paddock to round up cattle.
They were on flat ground, just 50 metres from the farm gate with little around them to burn, Supt Westwood said.
“They decided to move away from that area and quite unexpectedly, very suddenly, they experienced extreme winds and what could only be described as a fire tornado.”
The tornado lifted the back of the eight-tonne truck, which was also laden with water, “fully inverted it” and dropped it on its roof.
Mr McPaul and a second crew member, who were working out the back of the tanker, were pinned while the truck’s driver was trapped inside.
The firestorm badly burned the man trapped next to Mr McPaul but he was extricated from the wreckage.
Mr McPaul did not survive.
“Samuel leaves behind a family that is now without a father and a husband,” Supt Westwood said, choking back tears.
“He was trained and doing everything right on the day when something went wrong.”
The driver, who was also burned, is an RFS veteran with more than three decades of experience.
From his hospital bed the driver has told his bosses he appeared to be on safe ground when the tragedy struck.
“This freakish weather event that would have to be seen to be believed — and even then there are veteran firefighters who don’t believe what they saw — engulfed that vehicle with flame, fire and strong winds and literally picked up an eight-tonne truck and flipped it,” Supt Westwood said.
The driver has since been discharged from a local hospital but the badly burned crew member was airlifted to Melbourne with the help of a navy helicopter.
It was on the same road that a four-tonne four-wheel-drive also flipped and another crew was burned in the erratic wind storm.
The driver of the four-wheel-drive, another veteran group captain, was left with a torn leg muscle and concussion.
He has since been released from hospital.
The two RFS crew members were overrun on the same road, near the banks of the river, and received facial burns.
One of those two were transferred to Concord Hospital in Sydney.
Supt Westwood said Mr McPaul was a “beautiful young man” who was in the service for “all the right reasons”.
Many of the local brigades, who knew Mr McPaul and will be mourning his loss, have returned to the fireground today as reports emerge of homes being lost across the NSW-Victorian border.
NSW FRS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons this morning revealed the 28-year-old had been expecting a baby with his wife.
“He leaves behind a beautiful wife who was pregnant with their first child which was due on the first of May,” he said.
“As you would expect the family is grieving and it’s been a very difficult night and I don’t think the comprehension has set in yet on the enormity of the loss.”
He said Mr McPaul was “well respected and admired in local community and brigade”.
The McPaul’s had been married for just 18 months.
“We’ve got a completely devastated family and a devastated local community.”
Mr Fitzsimmons said the extreme weather event that killed Mr McPaul, which happened just before 6pm, was described by firefighters on the ground as “truly horrific”.
“It was a extraordinary wind event, (been described as) a fire tornado... it literally lifted up a 10 or 12 tonne fire truck and.... trapped the people inside, killing Sam.”
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said Mr McPaul died in “very very difficult circumstances”.
“We can’t express enough our sympathy and condolences,” she said.
She said it was a “very tough day” on the South Coast.
“Every fire front is a threat to life, and a threat to life as we know it and this devastating news bought it home last night.”
Mr Fitzsimmons said another two colleagues on the truck with Mr McPaul were also injured with one taken to a Melbourne Hospital with serious injuries including burns.
On the same fire ground another two fire fighters suffered burns to their faces and airways with one having to be intubated. They were flown to Concord Hospital.
Another volunteer command officer was taken to hospital with bruising and other minor injuries but was released last night.
Mr Fitzsimmons said the conditions overnight were worse than they had expected with properties and communities “heavily impacted”.
He said New Years Eve with be a “very volatile day” with no relief for the South Coast until tonight when a southerly sweeps through between 7pm and 9pm.
Mr Fitzsimmons said it was “generally safer to go to the beach” with multiple communities being evacuated.
Mr McPaul’s death came just 11 days after young fathers Andrew O’Dwyer, 36, and Geoffrey Keaton, 32, were killed when a tree fell on their fire truck at Buxton, south west of Sydney.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he was devastated to hear the “terrible news”.
“These are testing times. We are so grateful for the courage and dedication of our firefighters,” he said on Twitter.
Anthony Albanese said it was a “tragic reminder of the very real dangers” that emergency workers face.
“My heart goes out to the firefighter’s family, friends and crew mates.”
The terrifying conditions were being likened to Black Saturday when 173 died, 414 people were injured and 450,000ha of land was burned.
“[It's] comparable almost to Black Saturday in some ways, if the forecast does eventuate as given to us,” East Gippsland fires incident controller Ben Rankin said.
“It is quite an extreme day for us, really the first really bad day that we've had on this group of fires since they started on November 21.”
Conditions were described as “incredibly volatile”.