Bushfire heroes ‘the new Anzacs’

NSW RFS volunteers who lost their lives during last summer’s bushfire crisis were remembered as ‘the new Anzacs’ in a moving memorial service on Sunday.

NSW Rural Fire Service members place their hands over their heart after laying flowers during the annual Emergency Service Volunteer Memorial at the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney on Sunday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jenny Evans

NSW Rural Fire Service volunteers who lost their lives fighting blazes during last summer’s bushfire crisis were remembered as “the new Anzacs” in a moving memorial service on Sunday.

Eight new names were added to a memorial plaque of volunteer emergency service workers at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair in Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden during the annual Emergency Services Volunteer Memorial Service, which is held on the second Sunday every October.

The names of Michael Maria, Phillip Bell, Ian Long, Robert Panitz, Geoffrey Keaton, Andrew O’Dwyer, Samuel McPaul and Colin Burns joined many other volunteers from the NSW RFS, State Emergency Service, Volunteer Rescue Association, Marine Rescue and predecessor organisations who lost their lives.

Members of the Flag and Headress Party at the memorial. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jenny Evans

Mr Keaton, 32, Mr O’Dwyer, 36, Mr McPaul, 28, and Mr Burns, 72, died during the 2019-20 bushfires.

The other four volunteers passed away from illnesses as a result of their service.

Emergency Service Minister David Elliott likened our emergency services personnel to the Anzacs.

“No living Australian would find a year where our emergency services, particular our volunteer emergency services, have not been in the forefront of the Australian way of life,” he said.

“I don’t think there would be a time in living memory where the people of Australia owe such a debt of gratitude to emergency services. We’re not only commemorating the loss of life, and remembering the sacrifice paid, but we’re also celebrating the valour of those who had fallen.”

Emergency service personnel, as well as family and friends, laid wreaths and paid respect to those who lost their lives.

The ceremony came as water-bombing aircraft worked all day on Sunday to contain an out-of-control bushfire in the Royal National Park south of Sydney.

The NSW Rural Fire Service believes the fire started from a spot fire while firefighters were undertaking hazard reduction burns to the west of the Princes Highway near Heathcote on Saturday.

Flowers lay across the Volunteers Memorial. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jenny Evans

The fire had burned through over 400 hectares by Sunday afternoon, causing both road closures and the cancellation of train services on Saturday.