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Branching Out : Events

Photo: Grose Valley Fire by Ian Brown

The Grose Valley Fire : November, 2006

It seemed surreal, almost irresponsible, to be playing badminton and having a street party when a fire was burning in the nearby Grose Valley. Firefighters were putting their lives at risk on our behalf. We were outside in a paddock, with grandstand views of the smoke and the helicopters, across Hat Hill Creek and Burramoko Ridge all the way north to the Grose and beyond. The kids loved the action, but there was no great sense of peril or drama. There hadn’t been all week.

Suddenly that changed. A fireball seemed to explode on the horizon, and then burn towards us along Burramoko Ridge. ‘Crikey, what’s going on?’

I was lucky. Standing next to me was someone who was intimately involved with the fighting of that fire. This was his first day off in six days. He was exhausted, frustrated - and pissed off. He looked at me with red-ringed, bloodshot eyes.

His answer was resigned. He knew what was going on - and he didn’t like it. “Oh, it’s a back burn we’ve been told to put in. That’s the fire that will actually make the main fire we’re trying to put out 10 or 20 times bigger”.

It was not a reassuring answer. For the next couple of hours, the crowd at that street party – young and old - watched the spectacular burn. We all had questions we wanted answers to. We still do.

By Gregg Borschmann

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