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Australia’s volunteer firefighters battle fatigue, injury and loss
DARGAN, Australia, Dec 21, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – After six exhausting weeks
battling massive bushfires that are ripping through rural Australia,
volunteer firefighter Andrew Moyle wishes for just two things: rest and rain.
“Rain would be best,” said Moyle, who juggles firefighting shifts of up to
18 hours with running his own maintenance business and managing a family
cattle station.
The colossal task of fighting New South Wales’ unprecedented bushfires
falls largely to people like Moyle — a band of doctors, farmers and factory
workers who at 70,000-strong are the world’s largest volunteer fire service.
For weeks the 57-year-old and his crew have toiled in searing temperatures
and thick acrid smoke as they try to curb a “mega-blaze” that has turned a
swathe of national park near Sydney to ash.
“People are really tired,” Moyle said, describing the service as “very
stretched”.
“As you get older like me it’s hard, it’s very tiring. It takes a toll on
everybody here.”
The risks are enormous and the sacrifice is immense. Two volunteer
firefighters have died and some have had their homes destroyed while they
were out saving other people’s properties.
Gary Stokes, a veteran firefighter who last week spent 80 hours
volunteering, said fatigue was affecting his whole brigade.
“I was sitting having a cup of tea yesterday and a little old lady came up
to me and sort of gave me a hug and I actually had tears,” he said. “You just
need people knowing what you’re doing, we’re just trying to do our best.”
Australia is no stranger to bushfires, but even among veterans there is a
sense that this year’s climate change-fuelled blazes are different.
Bushfires have been raging along Australia’s east coast for months, burning
three million hectares (7.4 million acres) — equivalent to the size of
Belgium — and razed more than 800 homes in worst-hit New South Wales alone.
“Last time, you’d be on the job for a couple of days. This time you’re on
the job week after week after week,” said the 63-year-old airline pilot.
“It’s an emotional thing, because you’ve got to be on top of the game all
the time, or someone will get hurt.”
Stokes worries about the strain on his family, and his wife is concerned
about the dangers he faces.
“I don’t know when to say, for myself, enough’s enough, I can’t just keep
going day after day after day after day. But we have to at this stage.”
Scientists say Australia’s fire seasons are beginning earlier and burning
with more ferocious intensity due to climate change. Much of the country’s
east is also gripped by a prolonged drought — that has worsened fire
conditions.
Retired NSW Fire and Rescue commissioner Greg Mullins, a leader of ex-fire
chiefs advocating for climate action, has predicted the season could stretch
into May — months beyond its typical endpoint — and pile more pressure on
volunteers.
Since 1896 — when the first volunteer brigade was founded in New South
Wales — the service has relied on amateurs because hiring professional staff
year-round across a vast landmass would be prohibitively expensive and, for
most of the year, unnecessary.
But shrinking rural communities, an ageing population and the prospect of
longer and more intense fire seasons are all straining the volunteer model.
The deaths of two volunteers have highlighted the “inherent risks” facing
firefighters, according to New South Wales Rural Fire Service commissioner
Shane Fitzsimmons.
“When this sort of tragedy confronts an organisation like the RFS,
everybody hurts, it hurts everybody to the core and we know that we’ve lost
absolutely valued members of our RFS family,” he said.
“We know that these men and women, our volunteers, are remarkable
individuals.”
BSS/AFP/GMR/0839 hrs