The NSW Rural Fire Service exonerated itself over the ill-fated Mount Wilson backburn during the black summer bushfires in an internal investigation that the government has declined to release publicly.
The backburn escaped on December 14, 2019 and ran for 53 days, affecting the communities of Mount Irvine, Bilpin, Berambing, Kurrajong Heights, Blackheath, Mount Victoria and Bell, destroying rail, road and power infrastructure and at least 20 houses, including Mount Wilson RFS captain Beth Raines’s home.
A view of the Blue Mountains area scorched by the bushfires taken from Du Faurs Rocks at Mount Wilson.Credit: Kate Geraghty
But an interim report prepared for the NSW Bushfires Inquiry last year, obtained by the Herald, concluded that the backburn was the result of careful planning, adequate consultation with the local brigades and community and had been rightly determined a necessity. It escaped due to a change in the wind direction and intensity.
The Mount Wilson backburn was part of a broader strategy by the RFS to run a continuous line of backburning from Colo Heights in the east to Lithgow in the west, to protect the populous parts of the Blue Mountains along the Great Western Highway from the Gospers Mountain fire, which was running rampant in the north.
They planned to loop the containment line north of Mount Irvine and Mount Wilson if the fire crossed the Bungleboori Creek, 10 kilometres to the north, at which point the threat posed by Gospers would be deemed higher than the risk of implementing a backburn in the hot and dry conditions.
But the RFS report “Factual Investigation: Gospers Mountain Fire - Impact on Mount Wilson and Bilpin - 14 December 2019” confirms the RFS decided on December 13 to expedite the backburn to the following day to take advantage of a good weather window before conditions were set to deteriorate.
Managers at Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains met at 8.11am and agreed to implement the new plan, according to the report. At 4.56pm they discussed the plan with the brigade captains. “All agree to commence the operation at the intersection of Bells Line of Road and Mount Wilson Road.”
The Gospers fire never reached the communities that the backburn was designed to protect. It held at Bungleboori Creek and it was the backburn that escaped into the Grose Valley and threatened towns along the Great Western Highway.
However, the interim RFS report was uncritical of the overall strategy, saying the forecast temperatures and other factors provided a reasonable understanding that the likelihood of the main fire spreading was high.
The 76-page report appears to have drawn its conclusions before the investigator interviewed four of the nine key players in the backburn.
It does not address why the managers decided to depart from the previously agreed trigger point before lighting the backburn, nor why they chose to anchor it eight kilometres upwind of Mount Wilson. Ms Raines has previously said she was blindsided by the change of plans and tried to convince them to light it elsewhere.
She declined to comment for this story.
A spokesman for the RFS said there had been a number of draft reports, but the final version was provided in its entirety to the NSW Bushfire Inquiry in 2020 and it would be inappropriate to make further comments before it was considered by the coroner.
Following a recommendation from the inquiry, the RFS had developed a new backburning protocol in consultation with senior volunteers and other agencies, which took effect in February.
“The protocol outlines arrangements for strategic and tactical backburning; the recording of backburn implementation and results; and when required, a process for a review of strategic backburns at state level,” the spokesman said.
The Herald applied for the report last year under freedom of information laws but the Department of Premier and Cabinet declined to release it on the grounds that it would form part of the brief of evidence considered by the NSW coroner. The NSW Coroner’s office has since confirmed it advised the DPC by email on May 17 not to release the document “out of abundant caution”, because the information might prejudice its own investigation, which is likely to begin hearings next year.
Dave Owens, who co-chaired the NSW Bushfire Inquiry, said his team had asked the RFS to report on the Mount Wilson backburn because it wanted to understand the facts, taking into account that the RFS would be effectively investigating itself.
But the inquiry steered away from making findings, in deference to the coronial investigation, he said. In NSW, coroners have jurisdiction to investigate fires and explosions, as well as suspicious or unnatural deaths.
“It was one of the backburns that the community identified as one we should look at,” Mr Owens said. “We were asked to look at a number of backburns and that’s why we made the recommendation to differentiate between tactical and strategic backburns.”
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