Into the heart of the bushfire

‘You can’t start a fire without a spark’ according to rock star Bruce Springsteen, and you can’t fight a bushfire without determination and heart.

When lightning struck an already smouldering Narrabri Shire, those who rallied to battle it cerainly showed that determination and heart.

The Duck Creek Fire burning within the Pilliga Forest approximately 17km south of Narrabri, 20km west of Boggabri, and 40km northeast of Coonabarabran is now at “patrol” status, as of Wednesday, January 2.

Firefighters from National Parks and Forestry NSW continue to actively patrol the ground over the coming days, extinguishing any hotspots, preventing re-ignition, and maintaining containment.

Our local and visiting Rural Fire Service and fire response crew welcomed the back end of December, with the Duck Creek Pilliga Forest fire now contained, due to resounding efforts of those on the ground, in the air, and at RFS headquarters.

The December 8 wildfire, declared a Section 44 “State of Emergency” was the first for this fire season in the Namoi Gwydir RFS Team area.

And the wildfire could only be described as that: wild, but other words came to mind from those at the RFS Control Centre in Narrabri, like “erratic”, “unpredictable”, and “bizarre fire behaviour”.

Currently, the ongoing fire has burnt more than 138,000 hectares of forest, at its peak on Tuesday December 19, breaching containment lines along the borders of the state forest.

It then blazed onto neighbouring properties and farmland before Mother Nature intervened, delivering 17mm of rain through Wednesday December 20, right in the nick of time.

The welcome downpour came into the north and east, offering a reprieve to firefighters and air support who accepted the fire was finally out of control, and turned their efforts to saving precious homes along the borders of the Pilliga State Forest.

The rapid and unpredictable spread of the blaze had people considering, what it really takes to battle a fire.

Hundreds of firefighters dedicated their lives to fighting and containing the blaze, spending hours in 41-degree heat, and yet no one lost their determination, especially those at the Narrabri RFS control centre making up the Incident Management Team, tasked with creating the strategic plan of attack, an almost impossible task for the unpredictable inferno.

At the Narrabri RFS control centre, teams of planning and operations officers, incident controllers, IMTs, logistics, and public information officers, to name a few personnel, all worked side by side, along with Forestry and National Parks, who rolled in from across the state to assist.

RFS District Manager Bronwyn Waters from Tamworth received the call and arrived in Narrabri, early on December 9 to report as Incident Controller for the emergency.

“The fire escalated quite quickly with several lightning strikes and fires, and they knew from previous history that this would be a large campaign fire and need a lot of resources and personnel from other agencies,” said Mrs Waters.

“If we didn’t have the entire team to do their part – it would be very overwhelming.

“We have teams from NPWS and FCNSW, strike teams from Fire and Rescue, Incident Management Team personnel, people in the field, a public information person, people in planning, forecast readers, fire behaviour analysts, aviation, logistics, heavy plant personnel, and safety officers ensuring everyone is safe.

“And we all come together from everywhere.”

In the New Year The Courier made a stop at the station to catch the squad while they took a breath, but through December, those passing the Old Newell Highway headquarters could see helicopters, fire trucks, and cars chocka-block at the hub of activity.

While things have quietened down, one thing is for sure, the worst of the fire season is not yet behind us, with temperatures set to rise in January and February.

Now though, each member is finishing their rotation and heading back to their home district for a well-deserved break, but not before we get a few stories.

“We’ll all head back to our local districts, and it’ll be left for the local district to do the last bits and pieces, but we all come together when we need to again, and you never know it might be my district next,” said Mrs Waters.

There were plenty of stories to be told around the office, so stay tuned for the next few weeks to read some ‘firey’ stories from the front, told by those at the very heart of the fire efforts.