NSW: How a routine backburning job turned to tragedy

AAP General News (Australia)
12-14-2001
NSW: How a routine backburning job turned to tragedy

By Roz King

SYDNEY, Dec 14 AAP - Seven NSW National Parks officers walked into the bush on June
8 last year for a routine backburning operation.

A few hours later, four officers walked 750 metres back out with their clothes and skin on fire.

The other three had died in the flames.

What went wrong that day had more to do with planning than the actual operation, a
coroner found today.

The conditions for the backburn, at Mt Kuring-gai, north of Sydney, were "text-book" perfect.

It was a cool day in the middle of winter and the vegetation was moist.

The hazard reduction burn was meant to be only a mopping-up operation following a backburn
the day before, designed to protect houses in the area.

Led by experienced firefighter George Fitzsimmons, 52, the officers used drip-torches
to light both sides of a track known as the wallaby track.

Shortly after 2pm, the crew heard a woman scream, NSW deputy coroner Jan Stevenson
said in handing down her findings.

"The crew appeared to be surrounded by smoke and fire," she said.

Suggestions that the fire had flared up in a gust of wind were not even mentioned in
Ms Stevenson's report.

Instead, she said it was the pattern of lighting that probably caused the fire to burn
out of control.

"Both sides of the track were lit in such a fashion that the ignition points would
have joined quickly and hastened the rate of fire spread on each side of the wallaby track,"

she said.

When this happened, Mr Fitzsimmons rejected firefighting principles by running uphill
with his crew behind him.

Ms Stevenson said this was probably because the hill was marked as "cleared" on the
map and he was trying to lead the officers to safety.

But on the hill Mr Fitzsimmons and two officers, Erik Furlan, 51, and Claire Dean,
25, were overcome by smoke and later burned to death.

Luke McSweeney, 27, decided not to follow but to turn back, and encouraged three others
- Natalie Saville, Mark Cupit, 32, and Jamie Shaw - to join him.

The four stumbled onto the street and were hosed down by two local residents, who radioed
for help.

Two months later, Mark died of his burns in hospital.

Ms Stevenson today blamed the tragedy on poor planning by the NPWS.

The four deaths were the first for an NPWS backburning operation.

"All those who survived the fire can take comfort from the fact that this particular
set of circumstances in all probability will never occur again," Ms Stevenson said.

Luke, who suffered burns to 70 per cent of his body and whose face is badly scarred,
today had a message for Jamie Shaw, who is still in hospital 18 months after the fire.

"Jamie, it's finally come out," he said.

"The truth has come out and that's one more step to closure."

AAP rk/arb/jnb/de e

KEYWORD: BACKBURN (AAP BACKGROUNDER)

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