THE Tamworth-based Rural Fire Service commander overseeing the response to the devastating 2013 “Black Sunday” bushfires has conceded a communication breakdown hampered efforts to contain the massive blaze.
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The NSW Coroner’s Court heard yesterday the fire, which destroyed scores of homes near Coonabarabran, was described by firefighters as “one of the worst large-scale firefighting efforts they had been involved in”.
The Wambelong fire destroyed 53 homes and tens of thousands of hectares in January 2013 when it was sparked in the Warrumbungle National Park, near Coonabarabran. There were also massive losses of livestock and wildlife.
An inquest into the cause of the fire and the response from emergency services heard yesterday that fire crews, brought in from outside the area to fight the blazes, had been highly critical in the weeks afterwards of how the firefighting effort was organised.
In particular, they said there was a lack of communication between those in charge of the response and the crews heading out to the fire ground.
The Rural Fire Service incident controller overseeing the response from Sunday, January 13, Superintendent Allyn Purkiss, conceded in the Coroner’s Court that firefighters on the ground had not done what he required them to do because of the communication breakdown.
He agreed there had been “disquiet” about this issue between “certain brigades” and those leading the response.
However, he said the problem had arisen because some of the crews had failed to attend morning briefings at the Coonabarabran Showground before they went on to the fire ground and so were not aware of what they had to do.
When asked what could be learnt from this, Superintendent Purkiss said: “Possibly, if they can’t attend the morning briefing they can’t attend the fire ground.”
The inquest heard that, after being appointed incident controller about 10am on January 13, Superintendent Purkiss did not arrive at the fire control centre at Coonabarabran until 2.20pm.
He did not receive a briefing about the status of the fires until he arrived, by which time extreme weather conditions had set in.
There was evidence that, between 10.55am and 3.56pm, no additional firefighting resources were placed on the ground, leaving about 18 firefighters trying to fight multiple blazes.
“It’s very difficult without being able to see maps – it would have led to presumptions being made,” Superintendent Purkiss said of his decision not to undertake a briefing until he arrived.
The inquest heard that there had been a delay in firefighting aircraft arriving at the scene, partly because pilots were not allowed to work for more than 10 hours without a break.
But Superintendent Purkiss said, by the time he arrived at the control centre, this would have made little difference.
“By the time I got there, it wouldn’t have mattered what resourcing we had because the weather had picked up,” he said.
“If we had had a million firefighters and 100 aircraft, it wouldn’t have had an impact on that fire.”
He said that, in hindsight, had he been in charge the night before the fires became out of control, he would have “thrown everything, including the kitchen sink” at them.
The inquest continues.
– The Sydney Morning Herald
