Firefighters said nothing could stop the Gospers Mountain mega fire. Here's why Sydney was spared

[Music] it began not with fire but ice a violent storm sweeping across new south wales just under 19 100 lightning strikes in 24 hours the new fire's been detected from a fairly enlarged lightning van that went from the victorian border all the way to the hunter area weather stations mapped each electromagnetic pulse at the tail-end strike 19068 an outlier from the storm landing deep in walamai national park for the first time we can show you that single point of ignition a stringy bark since spelled by forensic teams a lightning strike with this tree sparked one of the biggest bushfires the world has ever seen what became known as the gospel's mountain fire raged for 79 days burning a path towards the edge of sydney after years of drought the wallamai was primed for disaster its creeks dry the fuel load high gorges that normally act as fire breaks quickly engulfed this is a line scan it's a thermal image taken by aircraft used by firefighters to plot the blaze two and a half hours after ignition it had burnt through 65 hectares as three helicopters attempted to dust the flames winds became treacherous we had records of gusts up to 67 kilometers an hour that day so it was too windy for the helicopter to water bucket on the fire and obviously it was too windy to insert the national park's raft team unable to winch in those remote area firefighting teams national parks sent in fixed-wing water bombers it wasn't enough by the next morning the fire had torn through 521 hectares of park everywhere from the queensland border south to the sydney boson was involved in uh firefighting so resources were absolutely stretched a sky crane and large aerial tankers joined the water bombers with winds easing helicopters finally got raft teams in the choppers refueled hot with engines burning a high risk operation with time running out ten days into the battle rain brought a reprieve remarkably the lion scan from that day shows the flames all but extinguished gospels was down but not out it was a sleeping giant at the very beginning we did have some rainfall on the fire ground and the fire went to sleep but as soon as the weather turned again it reared its head again whipped up by high winds on november 7th the fire began the first of two extraordinary runs doubling in size in just one day the fire behaviour was very erratic nothing we did stopped it no matter what we tried it was just a continuous beast on november 12 conditions became catastrophic i declared a state of emergency across new south wales the fire began another massive run jumping fire breaks at putty road line scans from that day show flames traveling 12 kilometers in a little over two and a half hours its speed overwhelmed firefighters as the gospel's blaze again doubled in size to 56 000 hectares we actually had fire on both sides of the putty road so heading north heading south heading east heading west it was all points of the compass karen hodges a veteran firefighter with 32 years experience had been appointed incident controller just a day earlier to halt its eastern march she decided to use the largely dry mcdonald river as a containment line over the course of a week her team musted every available resource to create a fire break once again severe weather destroyed the firefighters hard work on november 24 a storm unleashed its fury over the fire ground over the next two days lightning sparked several new blazes outside the containment lines three mile creek little l complex and thompson's creek fires were born it was a day of absolute devastation because we realized that what we'd been doing to date was now null and void and we had to make now fall back strategies for a bigger pitcher yet again the first few days of december brought calmer conditions with the gospels fire still largely confined to bushland firefighters saw a chance to contain it on the 3rd of december the rfs was optimistic that it could finally get a hold on the gospel's mountain fire but as preparations were underway for a back burn in this area there was the discovery of a car in this car park there were two missing hikers and a ground and air search began 17 hours was lost it proved a major setback and the fire took a run towards more urbanized areas by the time the men were found by police swimming in the colo river the weather had turned back burning was called off as winds became treacherous now nothing could stop the blaze sweeping into colo village we could have held the gospels mountain section of the fire right there and that would have made one heck of a difference to the kohler heights village coal heights village would not have been impacted to anywhere near the same degree as the gospels mountain blaze continued to expand alarm bells were ringing computer simulations warned several fires could merge we were always planning for that possibility so we had that in the back of our mind that one day that may have happened by late morning on december 6 that nightmare scenario was unfolding the gospels mountain blaze joined up with the little l complex and paddock run fires in the lower hunter over 300 000 hectares were now a light a dozen homes lost and still it grew that afternoon it connected with both the three mile and thompson's creek fires the mega blaze was born there's not really any words that summarize the intensity of that fire neo-natal nurse stacy kent was one of thousands of volunteers fighting the blaze sometimes going straight from a hospital shift to the fire front you don't forget the heat the smoke the noise of just the fire coming towards you with more catastrophic days looming the focus stayed on containment back burns are a key part of firefighting but twice plans went wrong to devastating effect near lithgow crews racing to put in containment on the noon's plateau couldn't keep up and the main fire front swept through flames later setting the city's outskirts ablaze at mount wilson an unpredicted weather change caught the fire crews by surprise their backbone got away sparking the gross valley blaze which destroyed dozens of homes around biltman they put their heart and soul into that planning of that particular strategy and to have it go like it did on that afternoon due to the weather conditions that we didn't know were coming it was very devastating oh that's black december 21 the peak of the mega blaze that's massive man i've never seen that before on the southern flank of the blaze crews were trying to stop the fire jumping the hawkesbury river and making a run into sydney's suburbs just walls of flame and like as far as you could see from the treetops up to the sky and there was just fire all around us it's like mordor in the lord of the rings these are new images of the inferno now spotting up to 12 kilometers ahead of the fire front it was just orange no matter where you looked nothing fully prepares you for what is coming towards you the hills brigades were now in a fight to save their own suburbs for the first time we can show you how close sydney's northern outskirts came to disaster if the fire jumped the hawkesbury river near wiseman's ferry only a stretch of tinder dry bush would separate it from homes in sydney's leafy northern suburbs at the speed the fire was traveling it would take just a day if it crossed the river it was going to be catastrophic well as we know hornsby has a lot of urban interface a lot of houses on the edge of bushland so it would have been quite devastating were you preparing for that eventuality yes we were those fears so real planning was underway for large-scale evacuations in hornsby and the hills district so if this fire had got across the hawkesbury you're within a day of reaching a significant proportion of developments in that northwestern sydney area for the first time the weather was with the firefighters and the containment lines held december 21 still inflicted a terrible toll to lose those properties that we did was something that they're still coming to grips with but we have to look at the fact that we also saved many many hundreds of properties but in following days the threat from the mega blaze finally subsided the fire eventually tore through more than one million hectares of land hundreds of homes and buildings were lost along with countless numbers of wildlife on the 8th of january the mega blaze was finally contained but it took another month and flooding for it to be extinguished we had the record for the longest section 44 state of emergency here at hawkesbury that was 40 days this one beated hands down across the fire ground there are now green shoots of regeneration while recovery could take decades experts say we must learn the lessons now we need to go away and look at is how we can better prepare for these events in terms of the way we manage the landscape that's what i would like to see the community really prepare and help us to help them and it helps if people can take that time to prepare their property for the fire season a mega blaze no one will forget [Music] it was absolutely incredible the generosity and support that the public had for the firefighters and really showed the best of that australian mateship so i would really like to say thank you to people you don't realize how much of the difference that support to the firefighters really gave us to keep pushing and keep going out there day after day you

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 23,210

Keywords: news, abc, abc news, australia, bushfire, wildfire, rfs, rural fire service, nsw rural fire service, gospers mountain, mega-blaze, fire, fire and rescue, black summer, investigation, volunteer firefighters, climate change, hawkesbury, wollemi national park, global warming, extreme weather, natural disaster, sydney, new south wales, native wildlife, lithgow, hunter valley

Id: En1RenypuPQ

Length: 14min 8sec (848 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 25 2020