NSW bushfires: falling tree causes deaths of two volunteer firefighters

A falling tree caused a firetruck to roll off a road southwest of Sydney on Thursday night, killing two volunteer firefighters and injuring three others.

A falling tree caused a firetruck to roll off a road southwest of Sydney on Thursday night, killing two volunteer firefighters and injuring three others as they battled a fierce blaze.

The firefighters, from the Horsley Park RFS, were in the line of duty at the Green Wattle Creek fire near Buxton when the accident occurred just after 11.30pm..

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The driver and front seat passenger were killed in the crash, with three other injured firefighters having to fight off approaching flames while they waited for paramedics to arrive.

They were taken to hospital, one with superficial burns, but are expected to be released today.

NSW Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons was with the families of the victims on Thursday night to offer support.

The NSW Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS) confirms that two NSW RFS volunteer firefighters have died tonight near Buxton, in south western Sydney.https://t.co/cDbysmaU1r #NSWRFS

— NSW RFS (@NSWRFS) December 19, 2019

The fatal accident occurred at the end of an exhausting day for firefighters in which it’s feared some 40 homes could have been lost in Buxton, Balmoral, Bargo and surrounds, as the Green Wattle Creek blaze tore through the Wollondilly Shire on Thursday.

Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers offered condolences from the service to the families on Friday morning, saying the incident would “impact significantly” on others out in the line of fire.

“Their brigade was a tight-knit group so this is going to impact significantly on that tight brigade,” Deputy Commissioner Rogers said.

He said volunteers close to those who were killed would be offered time away from the fire fronts, but said: “Often firefighters want to get back to doing what they do because that’s a coping mechanism too.”

He confirmed police had launched an investigation into the crash.

The tragedy came on a horrendous day of fire, with another three firefighters taken to hospital after receiving severe burns while fighting the Green Wattle Creek blaze, two of whom have been put into induced comas.

At 7.30am on Friday morning there were over 100 fires burning across the state, with over half of those yet to be contained.

The Green Wattle Creek fire was at the highest emergency warning alert level, with another two blazes - the Gospers Mountain and Kerry Ridge fires northwest of Sydney - at Watch and Act alert level.

Deputy commissioner Rogers said the RFS’ main aim on Friday was to strengthen containment lines of fire ahead of dangerously hot and windy conditions on Saturday.

“(Saturday) is going to be another awful day for us,” he said.

Firefighters ‘enveloped’ by fire

Five volunteer firefighters were “enveloped” by fire after an inferno burning on Sydney’s outskirts overran their truck and left two men with burns so ­severe that specialists at Concord Hospital were forced to place them into induced comas. 

The men — aged 36 and 56 — were flown to Concord Hospital with severe burns to their faces, airways, arms and upper chests, while a 28-year-old woman volunteer was taken to Liverpool Hospital with minor burns and smoke inhalation.

Buxton resident Alan Bell described the moment the blaze engulfed the firefighters as horrific. 

“There were five fireys in that truck and it got caught in the flames at Bargo,” Mr Bell said. 

Thursday marked yet another perilous day when at least 20 homes were lost and communities on Sydney’s fringes were left shattered by the NSW bushfire crisis.  Friday is forecast to bring a ­reprieve but another heatwave is expected to arrive on Saturday.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian declared a seven-day state of emergency as searing temper­atures combined with strong winds to fan ferocious blazes to the immediate north, south and west of Sydney.   

A property burns in Balmoral, 150km southwest of Sydney. Picture: AFP

In Wollondilly Shire, on Sydney’s outer fringe, phone lines went down and panicked residents were forced to shelter in a ­library as the Green Wattle fire tore through the towns of Bargo and Balmoral shortly after midday, destroying at least eight homes. “It’s as serious as it gets here,” Wollondilly Mayor Matthew Deeth said from an evacuation centre.

“There’ll be people who won’t have a home for Christmas and the danger is far from over.”

Mr Deeth paid tribute to his ­region’s “absolutely exhausted” firefighters and said they were now the community’s “last line of defence”. “Our evacuation centre at Picton Bowling Club is at capacity and our RFS volunteers are stretched incredibly thin,” he said.

At the height of the crisis on Thursday, 2500 firefighters were battling 106 fires, 53 of which were uncontained and four of which remained at emerg­ency level.

Residents in Bargo, Yanderra, Balmoral, Pheasants Nest, Buxton, Couridjah, Thirlmere and Tahmoor were told on Thursday afternoon it was too late to leave.

In Buxton, a sharp southerly wind change forced the roaring fire on to the town, trapping RFS captain Jon Russell and his crew from Cottage Point in their ­vehicle as flames licked at the truck. Their hoses melted and their mudguard was destroyed.

A firefighting veteran of 40 years, Mr Russell thought they were doomed. “As I got out of the driver’s seat, they came back screaming ‘Get back in the truck get back in the truck’,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

“We stuck hard up against the garage because it was the only thing I could see … It was unbelievable the speed that moved at. Of all the days I have been a firefighter, today is the only day I thought it would be my last.”

Rural Fire Service inspector Ben Shepherd said two male RFS members were being treated by burns specialists at Concord.

They were part of a crew of five who had been battling an emergency blaze in Bargo, 100km southwest of Sydney. Mr Shepherd said the injuries were a reminde­r of the extremely serious and dangerous work being conducted by RFS crews amid the bushfire crises. He said without their heroics, Thursday’s carnage would have been far worse.

“These firefighters have paid a big price to protect their local community,” Mr Shepherd said.

“Everyone in the RFS is behind them and hopefully they’ll have a speedy recovery. ‘’

Mr Shepherd said the RFS was hopeful a lull in the state’s extreme conditions on Friday would give them time to regroup — but any respite would be brief. “Saturday is once again looking incredibly dangerous and unless­ we get any meaningful rain come Christmas Day, they’ll still be out there in the frontlines fighting to keep us safe,” he said.

Wollondilly state MP Nathan­iel Smith said the region resembled a “disaster zone”, while one RFS volunteer said the flames reached “200m” above the treeline in Balmoral, a village that was decimated by yesterday’s fires.

He said the blaze tore through the village within 10 minutes and it sounded “like freight train”.

Lynette Keneally, an RFS veteran of 15 years, said she watched nervously as the sky above her home in Oakland on Sydney’s southwest fringes, turned a “deep black”.

“It’s the worst fire I’ve ever seen,” Ms Keneally said.

“I signed up in 2001 after the Black Christmas bushfires and this one is worse — it just keeps burning.”

The town of Bilpin, northwest of Sydney, was on high alert on Thursday, caught between fire zones on one side of the town and the 400,000ha megafire at Gospers­ Mountain that threatens Sydney’s northwestern suburbs.

The Gospers Mountain fire reached emergency level on Thursday afternoon.

Emergency warnings were also in place for the Green Wattle Creek fire burning southwest of Sydney, the Kerry Ridge fire burning near Muswellbrook, and the Currowan fire between Batemans Bay and Ulladulla.