Hawkesbury still lacks essential firefighting infrastructure.
After four years and $40 million in government disaster funding, Hawkesbury is still missing essential firefighting infrastructure as its first real fire season since the Black Summer of 2019 approaches.
On 15 December 2019 when the RFS Mt Wilson backburn escaped burning down homes at Mt Wilson, Mt Tomah, Berambing and Bilpin, RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons ordered NSW Fire Rescue out of Sydney and up the mountain to help.
At the time the Commissioner was unaware Bells Line of Road didn’t have roadside water hydrants where Fire Rescue Trucks could refill. The results were devastating for everyone. Residents watched as their homes burnt, surrounded by NSW Fire Rescue that couldn’t spray water on the fire because they couldn’t refill their trucks.
Members of Hawkesbury Blue Mountains Community Bushfire Alliance had a Skype meeting on 20 December 2021 with Resilience Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons in which he said he dispatched all available Fire Rescue crews when the RFS backburn escaped and he thought Bells Line Road had roadside water for their trucks to refill as Blue Mountains does. The Alliance say the Commissioner was shocked to find out this wasn’t so.
An application was made to the Commonwealth Disaster Ready Fund to install inground 120 litre concrete tanks filled by water bores to redress this problem. The government outsourced assessment of these projects to international consultancy agency GHD whose Senior Advisor read the application and concluded:
“I am left asking – Is there anything else could this money be spent on to protect the community? When I should be convinced this is the best option.”
This comment has raised concerns about the validity of the assessment process. No application for any project in the Hawkesbury received funding.
“The government needs to take a good look at the knowledge, skills and expertise of the consultants because anyone with basic knowledge of fire disaster mitigation knows the best way to protect a community is ready access to water, which is why streets in suburban Australia have roadside fire hydrants.”
Residents of Wilson Tomah, Berambing, East Bilpin and Kurrajong Heights, having survived the devastating Mt Wilson backburn fire got together and formed the Hawkesbury Blue Mountains Community Bushfire Alliance to lobby to improve firefighting infrastructure. You can contact them a hbcba@gmail.com