A bushfire on Lake Albert Road torches bushland, causing evacuations and road closures. Photo: Paul Croker.
Four brave civilians ran to save a man and his dog as a weekend fire in suburban Wagga Wagga came dangerously close to destroying homes and threatening lives.
The fire started shortly after 4 pm on Saturday (December 6) in bushland next to a property at 66 Lake Albert Road, where Mark Lyons was at home watching the cricket.
“I heard this explosion and thought, what was that?! So I looked out of my window and all I could see was fire,” Mark said.
The sound of an explosion is believed to have been caused by power lines being hit by winds gusting at more than 80 kilometres per hour.
“I just thought I’ll grab my dog and my pictures,” he said.
As Mark jumped up, he heard a sound at the door.
“These two ladies came banging on my door, saying, ‘Quick! Quick! You’ve got to get out! And, is there anything else we can grab for you? Are there any other animals? Are there any other people in the house?'”
Mark was home alone at the time, and with the threat outside, all he wanted was to save his dog and photos.
“The car and the house are insured, and it was pretty dangerous, so I said “just leave it,” as we didn’t know which way the fire was going to go,” Mark said.
Outside, two men had run across to the house to help, and grabbed the garden hoses only to discover the water pressure was so weak that only a dribble of water came out, so they picked up some old fence palings to try and knock the flames down.
One of the men was Paul Croker.
“We had done what we could to stop the fire getting into the garden. There were things exploding in the bushes as they burned, and the power lines were arcing above, so there was a bit going on,” Paul said.
At 4.16 pm, Kim Butler was on Copland Street and saw the beginning of the fire when she pulled out her phone and filmed explosions and sparking as the flames took hold.
“Within about five minutes, it started from behind the traffic light and was halfway up the hill,” Kim said.
“With the wind that day it just went mad.”
With a high of 35.9 degrees and westerly winds gusting up to 83 kilometres an hour on Saturday afternoon, the conditions could have been catastrophic as flames swept towards homes at Beauty Point, and Warrawong Street in Kooringal.
The local fire control centre was staffed and operational at the time due to the day’s extreme fire risk warning which contributed to a much quicker response.
By 4.23 pm the first of several fire engines from Forest Hill, Glenfield, and Uranquinty, were on the fire ground. Overhead, an air tanker dropped fire retardant on Willans Hill.
Lake Albert Road, Lord Baden Powell Drive and Beauty Point Avenue were closed for more than two hours. Police enforcing the road closures had to intercept one driver who crossed a barrier, while hundreds of cars were diverted to safer detours until after 6:30 pm.
Nearby homes and businesses were also impacted by power outages. At the height of the emergency, McDonald’s on Hammond Avenue was forced to shut its drive-through, resulting in some cars having to reverse out, while some staff were sent home.
In what the Rural Fire Service described as “dodging a bullet”, the strong westerly winds fanned the flames into a controllable direction, allowing hardworking fire crews to extinguish the fire within an hour. Essential Energy personnel were then able to assess the damage. The fire scorched 1.6 hectares of land.
It is the latest in a horror start to the bushfire season, and this year, emergency crews are worried.
“We have had the roughest start to a fire season here for many years with more than 50 fires since the first of November across the four local government areas of the Riverina,” Rural Fire Service operational officer Bradley Stewart said.
Mr Stewart said that of the more than 50 fires sparked across the Riverina since November 1, most have been caused by farm-related activity.
“The RFS, in consultation with the Bureau of Meteorology, issue a Harvest Safety Alert and we are really asking people to pay attention to what’s going on and comply with those warnings when they are issued,” Bradley said.
“We’ve had several potential wind-driven fires, we have been exceptionally fortunate in being able to get around those fires and bring them to a successful conclusion without any property losses, but we’ve now had several fires go to Watch and Act, and one fire go to Emergency Warning in the space of two weeks, and now we’ve had fire at Willans Hill,” Bradley said.
“If that’s not an indicator to the wider public that we are facing potentially a very challenging fire season here locally, then I don’t know what would be,” he said.
Safely back in his Lake Albert Road home, Mark Lyon is a grateful man.
The heroes of the day were the fire fighters who prevented a tragedy and the police who created a safe perimeter, but Mark is especially grateful to the four civilians who came to his aid before the emergency crews arrived; to Paul Croker and another unidentified man who ran to the house and used anything they could find to beat down the flames, and for the two young women who ran towards the fire and the house to help Mark evacuate.
“I didn’t get a chance to thank them, as they did a great job. The two ladies and the two guys who helped. They were amazing,” Mark said.
