Firefighters say new vehicles ’urgently’ needed after devastating bushfire season

Firefighters across a bushfire-ravaged region of NSW have told an inquiry what they desperately need to help them do their job.

Volunteer Rural Fire Service crews across the bushfire-ravaged Blue Mountains have told of the difficulties they faced during the bushfire season and asked for better vehicles and more funding in submissions to the NSW bushfire inquiry.

The inquiry, jointly led by Mary Kane, the Independent Planning Commission chair and former NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer, and Dave Owens, the former deputy commissioner of NSW Police, was due to report to Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Friday.

Among the 1967 submissions were a handful from RFS brigades in the Blue Mountains, where the behemoth Gospers Mountain fire burned through 500,000 hectares across 79 days, along with a number of other significant fires.

The experience of the Katoomba/Leura RFS “clearly demonstrated” the lack of serviceable firefighting vehicles, wrote Brigade Captain Peter Bennett.

In September 2019 the brigade’s category one tanker and crews were sent to northern NSW to assist in an emergency. The vehicle stayed there even after the crews returned — and was not returned to the Blue Mountains until March 2020, long after the emergency was over.

“This meant that Katoomba/Leura RFS had to face no less than seven major bushfire emergencies in our district, three of which presented existential threats to the entire Blue Mountains community … without the use of our primary response vehicle,” Mr Bennett wrote.

Their replacement vehicle was a smaller tanker on loan from another brigade, which Mr Bennett said had a broken handbrake and compromised heat seal underneath the crew leader’s seat.

He added the brigade acknowledged the immediate need up north but needed the tanker to return much sooner. He said when they did get it back it was in poor condition.

The Katoomba/Leura RFS was missing its main tanker for the entire fire season, its brigade captain told the NSW bushfire inquiry.

Concerns over old and damaged vehicles were echoed in a submission from Rural Fire Service Association president Brian McDonough, who wrote that ageing fleets were “exposing our members to unnecessary risk” and require “urgent, and significant, investment”.

Mr McDonough recommended the RFS receive a funding increase to upgrade the fleet, while Mr Bennett suggested the RFS introduce a reserve fleet available for surge capacity at times of great need.

The Bilpin RFS, which was responsible for tackling the Gospers Mountain fire, asked for funding to speed up a plan to transform perimeter trails on private lands into official fire trails. Following the bushfires and immense community support directed at the brigade, now would be an “opportune” time to engage with the landowners, the submission read.

Woodford RFS successfully contained the Riches Ave fire in November 2019, resulting in no property losses. In a submission, Senior Deputy Captain John Grimshaw asked that the NSW Government gift to the Blue Mountains Council a piece of land owned by Sydney Water, located next to the brigade block, that was used to great effect during the blaze.

“In this incident, we used every inch of both blocks of land to co-ordinate trucks, feed crews, set up a divisional command, provide public information, as well as just managing our own brigade and firefighters,” Mr Grimshaw wrote.

The six-month inquiry was asked to report back to Ms Berejiklian on a wide variety of matters, including the causes of and contributing factors to the fires and the bushfire response such measures to control the spread of fire and the issuing of public warnings.

It received submissions from a wide range of groups, including fire brigades, councils, environmental organisations and hundreds of members of the public. It also held public consultations in areas hit hard by the bushfires.