Andrew Gee (Calare, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to pay tribute to all of the emergency services personnel who performed so magnificently during a recent bushfire emergency in the Central West of New South Wales. The first fire, at Belerada Creek, started on Friday, 9 February, and the following day the pine forests of Mount Canobolas were ablaze, with smoke billowing over the city of Orange. The blaze was also into the native forest and was certainly very threatening. Both fires were attended by nearly 100 brigades in total, working around the clock for 10 days. Between 150 and 180 firies fought the Mount Canobolas blaze, with the Lidster and Towac RFS brigades leading from the front. A further 80 to 100 fought the Belerada Creek fire, which was led by The Ponds and the Freemantle RFS brigades. Numerous bulldozers and graders teamed up to form firebreaks. The Hercules large air tanker and six helicopters were used to water bomb these fires into submission.

When these fires were brought to an end, nearly 3,000 hectares had been burnt, but miraculously no lives or homes were lost. I'd like to pay tribute to the unstinting efforts of the 65 RFS brigades within the Canobolas zone who were involved in the Canobolas fire, in particular zone manager David Hoadley, operations manager Brett Bowden and the Mitchell forward controllers, including group captain Peter Davis, senior deputy captain Tim Healey and deputy group captain Andrew Elms. I'd also like to mention the brigade captains of Lidster, John Sturgeon, and Towac, Stephen Vardanega.

I'd also like to pay tribute to the 34 brigades from the Chifley zone who participated so magnificently to extinguish the Belerada Creek fire, and all of those local brigades who assisted. I'd like to mention in particular zone manager Greg Sim, group captain John Kjoller, brigade captain Peter Spicer, from The Ponds, and also brigade captain Fred Howarth, from Freemantle.

I'd also like to mention the Cumberland zone RFS; the Central West strike teams from Fire & Rescue New South Wales; the National Parks and Wildlife Service, based in Bathurst; the Forestry Corporation of New South Wales; the SES from Orange and its surrounding areas—they were magnificent; the New South Wales Police Force; the New South Wales Ambulance Service; and, of course, Fire & Rescue New South Wales.

We are lucky in country New South Wales to have such wonderful volunteers. I was in the Canobolas zone RFS headquarters on the Sunday afternoon when those men and women in Orange were so concerned about that fire escaping the Mount Canobolas area and heading into the Pinnacle region, which is quite heavily populated. It was touch and go. The men and women in that zone HQ looked absolutely exhausted but thoroughly professional. It was with a sense of pride that I heard a few hours later that the winds had dropped down, and they'd brought the fire back under some semblance of control. We are very grateful to all of our emergency services personnel for the wonderful work they do in keeping our communities safe.