Retiring fire service boss Robert Cronk relives 2019 Cobraball bushfires disaster

Robert Cronk was there the night Yeppoon’s historic Club Hotel burnt down, the day fire destroyed the town’s picture theatre, and the biggest job of them all - the Cobraball bushfires disaster of 2019. Here he recalls those career-shaping moments.

A casual chat over the back fence at home turned into a near three decades-long career for Robert Cronk.

On Saturday, October 1, the Yeppoon Fire and Rescue Station Captain stepped into retirement after a 27-year career with Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, both Emu Park and Yeppoon.

It all started back in 1996 when Robert, who at the time was working for Livingstone Shire Council in the environmental health department, was mowing the lawn at his Emu Park home.

“I lived beside the fire station at Emu Park,” Robert explained.

“And the station officer who was running it there leaned across the fence one day while I was mowing the lawn and said ‘do you want to be a fireman?’

“And I went ‘ok then’ and that was it.

“I’d never even sort of thought about it prior to that - back in those days they just asked and you were in, that was it.”

Yeppoon Fire and Rescue Station Captain Robert Cronk has retired after a 27-year career with Queensland Fire and Emergency Services.

For Robert, his introduction to the fire service was a baptism of fire so to speak.

“There was training, a lot of training once you joined, but I think the day after I joined I filled out all of my applications for uniforms.

“They arrived a week later and then I was on the truck.

“Because I lived next door to the station, so I was just on the truck.

“And you know, I knew how to spell fire but that’s all I knew when I first got there.

“My first job was like a grass fire and they rolled me in the black stuff and said ‘ok your uniform’s all dirty now’ and that’s where it sort of went from there.”

It wasn’t long before Robert found himself on his first major job.

“I had to come across to the Club Hotel fire in Yeppoon when it burnt down that night - that was my first big job.

“That was in my first couple of months on the job.”

Robert described heading over from Emu Park that night as “scary.”

“It was one of those ‘oh my God, what am I doing here?’ things.

“Because as you can imagine, you could see it (fire) from Emu Park as we were coming across.

“You could see the glow from Emu Park.

“And you could hear it on the (fire) radio and the station officer in the front (of the truck) was yelling out all sorts of things.

“And we turned into the main road of Yeppoon and the whole main road looked like it was on fire because that was a pretty big hotel - it was one of those big, old-fashioned pubs.

“You know the ones you walked past and you could just smell beer at any time of the day.

“Just a big wooden structure - people lived upstairs.

“When we got there, the building was fully involved, it was just all on fire.

“The next big one after that was when the picture theatre burnt down here.”

Robert said he worked at the Emu Park fire station for 13 or 14 years before moving across to the Yeppoon station.

When asked about the worst days on the job over the course of his career, Robert said: “Look, you can’t say it’s a bad day, because it’s emergency services - it’s what we do.

“That’s cliche but that’s what happens.

“You go to horrific things.

“There’s no real bad days. Bad day? Today (Friday, September 30). My last day.”

When asked to elaborate further on that, Robert said: “You know, I’m not looking forward to it because I enjoy this.

“The people, the training, the community - it’s just a great atmosphere, it’s just a great place to work, it’s a good job.

“Just helping people and getting out amongst the community - different day every day.

“You might go to a car accident but every single car accident is completely different.

“Even automatic alarms, you show up to automatic alarms and you don’t know what you’re getting to.”

In relation to good days at work, Robert said: “A good day is everyone comes back to the station, mate.

“Especially if you’ve got bad jobs.

“When I say bad jobs - big jobs. Big structure fires or major grass fires, or some really difficult road crash jobs.

“You get everyone back to the station, that’s a good day.”

Cawarral Rural Fire Brigade member Nathan Jung keeps an eye on the Cobraball bushfires, burning in the early stages near Old Byfield Road.

Apart from the Club Hotel fire, Robert ranks the Cobraball bushfires of 2019 up there with the biggest incidents he has worked on.

Some 15 homes and 41 other structures were lost during the November 2019 disaster.

There was also significant damage to, and loss of, personal property including vehicles, machinery and fences.

About 12,000 hectares of land was impacted by the devastating fire front which was 17km by 13km wide.

“That was a big couple of weeks,” Robert recalled.

“That’s one of the biggest ones in this area that I’ve ever been to.”

This image was captured of the Cobraball bushfire burning in the early stages near Old Byfield Road.

When the Cobraball bushfires started, Robert was away heading up a strike team at Noosa, battling fires there.

“I had a whole strike team in Noosa - we were turned around and I brought the strike team back (to Yeppoon) for that (Cobraball).

“That (Cobraball) was a big weekend that turned into a big couple of weeks.”

When asked about his major memories of the Cobraball bushfires, Robert said: “Everyone pulling together. All agencies.

“All different agencies come together on those big fires and work together - it’s just a team effort and an amazing thing to be part of.”

Mount Rae Rd resident Norm Timms lost property to the Cobraball fire but amazingly his house survived. In the background is a car that was burnt out by the fire.

Robert said this region had not seen fires on the scale of Cobraball before 2019.

“We don’t get big grass fires like that because we don’t have the forests,” he said.

“But the conditions were right that week - they were just perfect that week.

“It brought that ‘perfect storm’ scenario that you hear, but yeah, that’s what it was.

“The conditions were just right - the wind was blowing the right direction, the grass was dry enough, the trees were dry enough and it just kept going.”

Tegan and Luke Nixon lost their home in the Cobraball fires of 2019.

Robert said fire crews worked around-the-clock for a couple of weeks during the Cobraball fires.

“A crew would come in and another crew would go out.

“But people were brought from all over the state, interstate, from everywhere for that.”

When asked if the region was ready for the Cobraball bushfires in 2019, Robert said: “The resources are there to respond to it, yeah.”

“But as things just get bigger - same as we deploy down to NSW and Victoria - we need to start rotating crews, because you just can’t keep people working 24/7.

“There was enough (resources) to respond because, Fire Communications, you say ‘I want more’ and they just keep bringing it in.

“They’ll just keep bringing them, and bringing them, and bringing them.

“A couple of days after (Cobraball started) they (fire resources) were coming in from Townsville and Cairns, from all over the place.”

An aerial photo of the Cobraball fires aftermath in 2019.

Robert said while numerous properties were destroyed during the Cobraball bushfires, it was a good result that no lives were lost.

“Oh absolutely, the potential is there (for death) with such a big fire like that.

“Yeah, that was a major fire. That was major in anyone’s books.”

An aerial photo of the Cobraball fire aftermath in 2019.

When asked if lessons were learned from the Cobraball bushfires, Robert said: “Oh mate, you learn lessons from every job you do.

“Even from the smallest ones, we come back here and we’ll do operational debriefs just, you know, lessons learnt.

“You don’t stop learning. Right up to the day you die, you don’t stop learning, especially in this type of job.”

Luke Nixon (centre) talks about plans to rebuild his home which was destroyed by the 2019 Cobraball bushfires with Crs Adam Belot and Pat Eastwood.

Throughout his career, Robert went on a lot of deployments himself to places in NSW and Victoria to fight fires.

He also travelled overseas with the fire service and trained in fire departments in America, Canada and New Zealand.

“Plus I’ve provided training for a lot of those jurisdictions as well.

“I was heavily into road crash and heavily into road crash training for quite a long while.

“That’s something that I was passionate about and followed up.”

As far as retirement goes, Robert, 59, said he didn’t yet know what that looked like for him.

“I don’t know yet, like it’s early days.

“You’ve got to find your feet when you retire.

“It’s difficult to walk away from this, because of what it is, because of the people you work with.

“We picked a (retirement) date and went ‘OK, let’s work towards that’.

“We’ve been planning it for a number of years so my wife and I are both retired now.”

So any regrets?

“There’s always regrets leaving these guys,” Robert said.

“But I’m leaving them in good hands.”

Taking over from Robert as Yeppoon Fire and Rescue Station Captain is Warren Brown who has 19 years of service with Queensland Fire and Emergency Services under his belt.

Warren Brown is taking over from the retiring Robert Cronk as Yeppoon Fire and Rescue Station Captain.

Warren said Robert’s departure left big shoes to fill but he was looking forward to the job ahead.

“I’m looking forward to the challenges and the responsibilities,” Warren said.

“I’ve had great mentors over the years and learned a lot from their different styles and personalities, and the way they do things.”

We’ll leave the final words to Robert.

“I’ve achieved a lot in 27 years,” he said.

“I really have achieved a lot and I’m proud of what I’ve done and where I’ve come from.

“Yeah I am, I’m happy with my life.”

Footnote: Queensland Fire and Emergency Services is currently looking for people who would like a career in fire-fighting in the Central Queensland region.

Head to https://www.qfes.qld.gov.au/careers-and-volunteering to find out more information.

Originally published as Retiring fire service boss Robert Cronk relives 2019 Cobraball bushfires disaster