Photo Exhibit
Australia Brush fires, Christmas 2001
by Martin Grant, CFPA
On Christmas Eve 2001 a large bush fire (wildfire) broke out at the foot of the Blue Mountains 50 kilometers west of the center of Sydney. Fanned by strong, hot westerly winds this fire soon gained huge proportions. Fire units from the New South Wales Fire Brigade (NWSFB), a department consisting of approximately 3,000 career firefighters and 3,000 retained firefighters, and the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS), a department of approximately 70,000 volunteers and 500 career officers, rushed to the scene.
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In the ensuing hours the fire would gain gigantic proportions with spot fires breaking out miles in front. Other fires had broken out and soon there were over seventy major blazes going in the state. On Christmas Day the big fire jumped the Nepean River and rushed into the small town of Warragamba. Over 30 houses, 10 large factories and a row of shops were destroyed. The fire continued on and soon major outbreaks were occurring to the immediate south of Sydney. Fifteen houses were destroyed in the town of Helensburgh alone.
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Further major outbreaks were starting and by the 26th of December, five thousand firefighters were on the ground supported by nearly seventy aircraft. Fire resources from interstate were starting to mobilize with crews from the states of Victoria (CFA - Country Fire Authority), South Australia (CFS - Country Fire Service), Queensland (QFRA - Queensland Fire and Rescue Authority), The Northern Territory Fire Service and The Western Australia Fire Service starting to make their way to NSW. The Australian Capital Territory, where Canberra, Australia's capital city is, was also ringed by wild fires by this time. In the following days massive fires continued to burn and by New Years Eve, 15,000 firefighters using nearly 3,000 trucks were mobilized statewide.
On New Years day the inevitable happened. A huge fire broke out in a park in the area known as Pennant Hills. This park is within 11 kilometers of the Sydney Harbour Bridge as is surrounded by houses. In other words, it is slap-bang in the middle of the city. NWSFB and RFS units rushed to the scene with nearly 100 trucks manned by 500 firefighters attending. These crews were backed up by choppers with the main star being ELVIS, the huge Erickson heli-tanker on loan from the Victorian Government. Without taking anything away from the skill of the other choppers, the massive machine filled 71 times from a duck
pond on the grounds of a nearby university. It flew for six hours and all agree the 300 houses could have burned without the huge water drops of this monster. The heli-tanker made such an impression, the NSW government immediately chartered two more from Erickson in the US and within 5 days these tankers (INCREDIBLE HULK and GEORGIA PEACH) were water-bombing with ELVIS down at the now massive fire south of Sydney in an area known as the Shoalhaven.
By the 10th of January most of the fires were being held within containment lines but the hot weather is coming back so it could be on again. The Victorian and South Australia crews have gone home to prepare for their own fire seasons. The Queensland contingent is still working in the Shoalhaven area. To give you an idea of the distance traveled by the interstate firefighters, South Australia is a fourteen hour drive by car. Victoria is ten hours and the guys from Queensland would have to drive at least thirteen hours so the distance for mutual aid is considerable.
As a photographer the opportunities are endless. Because the distances from fire to fire are so long, I picked an area to concentrate on. I mainly went up the Blue Mountains. The police have a zero tolerance attitude to everybody in times like this and I found my opportunities diminishing as every hour went by as more and more cops came on the scene. They ended up just closing off complete areas especially when evacuations were taking place and they did not care if you were the Queen of England, you did not go anywhere if they said so. But I persevered and I am happy with what I got. As you can see in the pictures, the Sydney area was covered in a mass of smoke like nothing I have seen in 21 years living in this town.
