Four Days and Three Fires - fuersturm und drang in the karri country over New Year 1969/70

Big Brook – one of my favourite patches of karri forest (photo by Jack Bradshaw)

Any forester who has worked in the karri country long enough will recognise two things that make the hair stand up on the back of the neck.

The first is the ominous silence on a calm, sunny day in winter, just before a great widow-maker comes swishing down on you, or an old tree decides to topple, silent in the air but devastating on impact.

I have survived both.

The other unforgettable is the smell and the taste of a nor'west wind in March, the one with the tang of burning banksia from up the track mixed with Indian Ocean salt ... the one that you know in your gut is destined to tear the tops off your favourite patch of karri if it gets a spark between its teeth.

I have also survived the worst a nor’wester could throw at me.

But it wasn't a widow-maker on a calm day or a nor'west wind that started the trouble we had in the karri country over the Christmas/New Year of 1969/70. It started with a powerful and bone-dry easterly originating from deep within the furnace of the central Australian deserts, and it blew relentlessly for four days and nights.

Tuesday, December 30th, 1969

It all began when I left forestry HQ at Pemberton (where I was the district OIC) early on December 30th to attend a staff meeting up at Harvey. All the regional and district OICs would be there, conferring on some end-of-the-year-issue-of-the-day. I used to look forward to these meetings. They were a break from the routine of district work, and a chance to compare notes with colleagues and to refresh professional friendships. But as I backed out of my driveway at 6am, it already had the smell and the feel of a bad day.  The sort of day when you weren’t keen to be away from the district office, or too far from home.

It was hot in the meeting room at Harvey. The easterly was whipping at the trees outside, and dust swirled down the gravel road. None of us feared a hot day, but the combination of heat and strong, dry winds was another thing. We were very much on edge. I phoned Pemberton at lunchtime and spoke to Ernie Percival, my 2IC. His tension was palpable, but it was, he reported, so far, so good.

Not long after lunch, my boss Steve Quain was called away to the phone. "They've got one at Manjimup" he reported on his return a few minutes later. No announcements were needed. The senior man from Head Office who was running the meeting was Wally Eastman, an old hand who had a lifetime of bushfire fighting behind him. Within minutes, the meeting was wrapped up and cars full of anxious foresters were dispersing to their respective districts.

I arrived home at Pemberton at about 6 pm. The forestry phones were chiming on the back veranda, and Ellen had a sheaf of messages. The most urgent was to ring Gordon Laidlaw, the admin officer at Manjimup. Gordon passed on an instruction from the Regional Fire Controller. I was to organise two of my fire crews, two foresters to act as Sector Bosses [Endnote 1], and a relief driver for the Pemberton D6 bulldozer (which was already at the fire), all to be at the control point west of Manjimup for the shift change at 0600 hours. I was also required to present myself at the Manjimup office at 0600 to act as Intelligence Officer for the day shift Incident Management Team.

I then got on the phone and conferred with Ernie Percival and my sub-district Assistant Foresters at Pimelea, Northcliffe and Quinninup. Between us we sorted out a plan for the next day. We agreed that we were thin on the ground, and it would be a nasty day. We further agreed to suspend normal work for the day. Every officer and crew was to be on full alert, prepared for action. Finally, I set out to organise the crews and officers to go to Manjimup in the morning.

This proved harder than usual. It was the week between Christmas and New Year and the usual festive spirit prevailed. I had to call at various houses in the settlement and then the pub and the Worker's Club before I had all the personnel organised ... and I was offered a drink wherever I went. By the time I got to bed it was nearly midnight, but I wasn't relaxed enough to sleep. Moreover, we had a baby daughter in the house at that time, and she only ever slept in the daytime, so that when I left home at 5.15 the next morning I was gritty-eyed and keyed-up.

The next day

Sunrise on Wednesday, December 31st ushered in another hot, windy morning. The air felt dry. There had been no overnight dew. This is a bad sign in the karri country when there are fires about. The bush is crisp and flammable. Arriving at Manjimup I was immediately ushered in for the briefing in the Ops Room. Then I started my job as Intel Officer.

It was high-pressure and challenging. My job was to collate and map the “sitreps” (situation reports) on the fire coming in from the field, and to prepare projections of fire spread, based on the weather forecast, forest type maps, aerial photos and our knowledge of fire behaviour patterns. I had to anticipate and map where the fire could be in 4, 8 and 12-hours’ time, updated every four hours. I was assisted by Jack Bradshaw. Jack ran the forest Inventory Branch at Manjimup in those days and was an expert with aerial photographs and forest type maps. We were up to our elbows in scale rules, maps, ink-pens, tracing paper, fire behaviour tables, photo pairs and sheaves of messages. Steve Quain was the Controller, and he expected me to update him and present my latest projections, every hour. Or immediately if there was a crisis. It was high-pressure … but not unenjoyable, Jack being one of my oldest mates, and good at his job.

But it was not to last. Just after mid-day I had a phone call from Frank Townsend, my admin officer in the Pemberton office. A fire had started on a farm west of Northcliffe and was headed straight into Crowea State forest, driven by the strong easterly wind.  I glanced at a map. Ahead of this fire were miles of beautiful forest, including Warren National Park, most of which at that time carried very heavy fuels. This fire had the potential to be a very nasty one [Endnote 2]. A cold hand gripped my heart.

Then old Ernie Percival came on the phone. Calmly he told me that he had already despatched the Northcliffe and Quinninup forestry crews to the fire, plus two D4 bulldozers. He had arranged for Assistant Forester Jack McAlpine to go straight to the fire and take charge. What did I think? I suggested one more thing: get onto the local earth-moving and logging contractors and see if he could organise some heavy bulldozers. We both knew that the little D4 dozers would be battling to cut firelines in heavy karri forest.

I popped in to see Steve and sought approval to leave Manjimup and deal with my own affairs, which he gave, and then handed over to Jack, and left for home.

There was a profound atmosphere of anxiety in the Pemberton office when I pulled in just after 1:pm. We had taken a beating the previous March when the Great Boorara Fire had laced the Shannon, and history looked like repeating itself.

However, it was not long before the first report from Jack McAlpine at the Crowea fire came in.

Assistant Forester “Black Jack” McAlpine, reporting in on firefighting operations.

Jack’s report was encouraging. The fire had swept across the farm paddocks, but then, thanks to luck (or good management), it ran into a patch of State forest that had been subjected to a prescribed burn the previous year. As a result, the headfire dropped down to a trickle. Jack had seen his opportunity and pounced with both his D4 dozers. He was optimistic he could pinch it in before it reached the heavy, long-unburnt forest beyond.

The cold hand around my heart unclenched, and I thought about ducking home for a cup of tea and a brush-up. But my relief was short-lived.

Earlier in the day there had been a disquieting report from Boorara Tree Fire Lookout. There was smoke drifting about in the Muirillup area, east of Northcliffe. Because of poor visibility and other difficulties, the lookout men had not been able to pinpoint anything (this was in the days before spotter aircraft). But Jim Laws, the Boorara Tree lookoutman, was very experienced, and was convinced something was wrong.  I trusted his judgement. Clearly I had to get someone on the ground in the Muirillup area immediately to see what was going on.

At that moment I had just one uncommitted officer left. All the rest of my staff were at the fire at Crowea or up at the Manjimup fire. The one remaining officer was the youngster Terry Maher. Years later, Terry became one of WA's best and toughest bushfire experts, but back in December 1969 he was a brand-new graduate of the Forest Cadet School, on his initial posting to the field and only two days into the job. I gave him a brief instruction, a map, a vehicle with a 2-way radio and sped him on his way.

Terry was a newbie, but equal to the task. Within an hour he had located the fire and was able to give us an accurate report over the radio. This left no doubt … we had another major fire on our hands.

The fire (Terry reported) had been burning through private property, slowly at first, generating only a light drift smoke, difficult for the lookout towers to fix. But then it had burned out into the forest and was now picking up steam.  He had seen no-one in attendance. [Endnote 3].

Just as Terry finished his report, lookoutman Jim Laws phoned in from Boorara Tree with dramatic confirmation. He now had a direct sighting of the fire; indeed, he could see flames coming out of the tops of the karri trees, about six kms to the north of his tree.

Boorara Tree fire lookout. It overlooked State forests to the south and east and the Boorara and Muirillup farming district to the north and west.

I checked the wall map, and again my heart contracted. Ahead of this fire were numerous farms, a large area of beautiful State forest known as 'The Thousand Acres', the Bunnings Sawmill and the town of Northcliffe.

It was now 3 pm on December 31st. I retreated to my room and stared at my desk. A mental summary was not encouraging. We now had three serious fires burning in the region and two of them were mine. My D6 bulldozer, two of my crews, and my best officers were at the Manjimup fire. My other crews and two D4s were battling the fire at Crowea. I had one newly-appointed Forest Guard at the Muirillup Fire, and nothing left. It was a moment for quiet desperation.

But at that moment I remembered some advice I once received from Jim Edwards, a good friend and one of my predecessors as DFO Pemberton. He had once been in a similar situation (what former Pemberton DFO had not?). "When all else has failed” Jim said, “tell the lookoutmen to retire, close the office, and go fishing". It was a good thought and worth a grin.

The tension broken, I returned to the Ops Room and started to get things moving. First, I phoned Noel Ashcroft, my counterpart at Shannon River [Endnote 4] and asked if he could get an experienced officer and two fire crews to Muirillup. Next, I talked to Frank Campbell, the department's Fire Control Superintendent in Head Office and asked could he arrange "the works" - staff, men and materials to fight two fires.

Just then I had a brainwave. I remembered Aub McEvoy, a highly experienced forester who had been seconded down to Pemberton from Harvey to oversee the construction of our new pine sawmill. Aubrey was not one of my staff, but I knew him to be one of the top field officers in the department. I did not hesitate to shanghai him, equip him with a Land Rover and maps, and send him off to the Muirillup Fire to take charge of the firefighting.

At about this time, a report came in from the Crowea fire. They had it surrounded, and the running fire was contained. This had been a heroic effort by a small team of very gutsy firefighters. But they were to get no rest. I needed them elsewhere.

In those days (at least when it came to bushfires), there was an excellent relationship between the forestry and the timber industry. They always came to the party when needed, providing machines, experienced operators and manpower. I rang Lionel Dobson, the manager of the Pemberton sawmill and asked could he supply me with a 'Shovel Gang' of mill hands to go out to Crowea and take over the mopping up and patrol of this fire. Lionel was a survivor of the Dwellingup Fire of 1961 and a good bloke [Endnote 5]. He agreed instantly and had two truckloads of mill hands on their way to the fire within the hour. Under the eyes of Jack McAlpine, they would put this fire to bed and watch it overnight. I immediately began the transfer of bulldozers, officers and fire crews from Crowea down to Muirillup.

Meanwhile the crews dispatched from Shannon River by Noel Ashcroft had arrived at the Muirillup fire. They were led by Les Robson, another young forestry officer experienced beyond his years. Les assessed the situation and then reported to me by radio. He told me there was nothing they could do. The fire was burning with extreme intensity, the flames in the treetops. His crew were equipped only with knapsack sprays, rakes and shovels. As well I knew, nobody stops a crown fire in karri forest with knapsack sprays, rakes and shovels. I told Les “if you can't do useful work, do nothing for the moment. Pull back, conserve your energies, and wait in a safe spot until reinforcements, especially large bulldozers, arrived”.

Just then, the seriousness of the situation worsened. Boorara Tree lookoutman Jim Laws began to phone in the positions of spot fires starting up way out ahead of the main front, the result of burning embers being carried downwind.  Jim also said he could actually hear the roar of the fire … but this might have been his Irish imagination.

As the afternoon wore on, the fruits of Frank Campbell’s organisation behind the scenes became evident. Forestry fire crews and foresters from all over the southwest began to pour into the yard at Pemberton HQ for re-fuelling and instructions before heading down to the fire.  (Glancing out of the office window, I noticed Paddy Evans, our veteran storeman, groaning over the pump handle of the ancient manual petrol bowser as he re-fuelled the various gang trucks, heavy duties and forester’s vehicles arriving from distant districts. I made a mental note to use his expected compo claim for back strain as a telling point in my long-running battle with Head Office to get an electric bowser for Pemberton HQ).

Better still, bulldozers were now arriving at the fire, first two logging dozers and then two big contract earth-movers, a Komatsu and a Caterpillar D8. They were immediately put to work, cutting containment lines along the flanks of the fire.

A heavy bulldozer, the most essential firefighting tool in the karri country (photo courtesy of Rick Sneeuwjagt)

There were no large aircraft for water or retardant dropping in those days. Even had there been, they would not have been any use against the sort of fire intensity we had down at Muirillup that day, nor are they ever very effective in forests with a dense, intercepting canopy. We were fighting the fire “old school” with bulldozers and fire crews following up, and with a focus on doing the best work at night. It was a method that was tried and tested, but like all firefighting methods then and now, it was up against an implacable enemy: a crown fire in karri country.

Early evening, December 31st

At about this time, the foresters who would run the night shift started to arrive at the Pemberton office. These included Jock Smart, who was to relieve me, and Peter Richmond, Noel Ashcroft and Alan Walker, all good men, his support team. My final job was to brief them on the current situation and the overnight strategy.  Aub McEvoy had done a great job, and was poised for the critical twelve hours ahead. He had established a control point at the Boorara Tree hut, sectors were nominated and bulldozers at work on fireline construction, working from east-to-west from the back of the fire. But the headfire was still “going like the clappers" as the old firey's phrase had it, and I found it hard to sound confident as I outlined the plan. This was to push the two big contract dozers forward to work on the head fire at the coolest time of the night to stop the fire run. If we could stop the headfire, we could then work back down the flanks and consolidate. The forecast was for the easterly wind to persist, but to moderate slightly at some time after midnight, at least for an hour or two. This would be the critical moment for the headfire strike.

New Year's Eve

It had been a trying day, and as the new faces rolled in I could feel my energies flagging. What with the trip to Harvey, the fire at Manjimup and all the subsequent events, I had been on the go for almost 40-hours. After a final "Good Luck!" I handed over to Jock Smart and walked home. Ellen had the TV on, and it was showing the Edinburgh Tattoo, which in those days was a staple on New Year's Eve. She had prepared a lovely meal, but I couldn't eat. Instead, to the appropriate accompaniment of the lone piper playing a lament from the castle battlements, I drank a melancholy bottle of beer and went to bed.

It was too hot to sleep, and the wind whistled in the trees outside. Snatches of radio messages repeated themselves endlessly in my mind. I was sick with apprehension for the disaster I was sure the dawn would bring. Oh nor'wester, I prayed, Oh beautiful nor'west wind, where are you when I need you? But every time I looked the easterly was stronger than it had been the night before. I was convinced I could smell smoke, even though the fire was thirty kilometres away.

January 1st, 1970, New Year's day

Fearing the worst I left home and walked the familiar route up the back of the houses, past the store, the Heavy Duty gantry and the empty truck bays, across the yard to the office. It was just before 6am on New Year's Day. What a way to start a decade, I thought. The office had a distinctly 'used' look, as it always did the morning after a night shift. Bleary eyed foresters stood around among maps, message pads, tracing paper, coloured ink-pens, spikes, cups and saucers, ashtrays and all the stale and uninviting detritus of a hard day’s night.

A new team was reporting in for the day shift, many good friends among them. It gladdened my heart to see Barney White ensconcing himself in the Supply Officer's chair, a bound volume of The History of the 2/28th Battalion at his elbow (for quiet moments). I saw Barney in that chair many times over the years. He used to say he hated fires, but whenever we had one he would always be there, sniffing the smoke of battle like an old war horse. He was an unsurpassable Supply Officer, never missing a trick, anticipating everything needed out at the fire, from drinking water to diesel, while at the same time catering for the needs of the team in the office. I could always turn to him for a snippet of bushfire wisdom or to be momentarily distracted by one of his memorable anecdotes.

Things had gone well during the night. Conditions had cooled after midnight, there had been a light dew, raising the humidity and the wind had eased. The two heavy bulldozers had got to the head fire at just the right moment, and had tucked it in. The smaller logging dozers were working to tie in the flanks.  There was a feeling of quiet optimism in the air.

But we were all aware of the dangers of underestimating the job ahead. There were kilometres of raw edge adjoining heavy fuels, there were hundreds of burning dead trees on the old Group Settlement farms, and hours of hot, dry winds coming up. Many a forest fire has been caught in the night and then lost the following day. Again I phoned Lionel Dobson at the Pemberton Mill, and also Jack Timms, the manager of the Northcliffe Mill. I asked each if they could provide me with two teams of professional tree fellers with swampers, to help us to get burning trees on the ground. Lionel and Jack were as good as their word.

Inspecting the fire

After the usual plans and briefings that characterise the start of a shift on a big fire, I drove down to Muirillup to get a first-hand grasp of proceedings. By nine in the morning I was sharing a billy of tea with the new day shift Fire Boss, Gordon Styles. It did me a power of good to see Gordon on the job. He was one of the best forest firefighters in the land, always efficient and cool in a crisis. I climbed Boorara Tree for a squiz at the smoky scene. I couldn’t see much but had a chat with lookoutman Jim Laws. He had been up and down the tree several times during the night but was his usual voluble and chirpy self.

Gordon and I then set off in a Land Cruiser for a tour of the fire. Sector Bosses, overseers and crews were encountered here and there. The usual problems were discussed, and homilies dispensed. There was much to be done, but at every bump and twist of the fireline, men and machines were at work, the dirty and unglamorous work of mopping up proceeding with efficiency.

Forestry fire crew mopping up with Heavy Duty fire truck (Photo courtesy of John Evans)

We were shown one particularly interesting sight. This was near the spot where I believed the fire had started (although we never did find the cause).  Gordon and I met up with the Sector Boss Audie Kern and I asked him about the fate of a small farm just to the west of us. Visions of the smoking ruins of farm and homestead had figured in my imagination the previous night. I was amazed when Audie directed us in and we found a completely unscathed establishment framed against a backdrop of smoking, blackened forest. It turned out that there had been 2000 sheep from the wheatbelt agisted on the farm and they had been removed only just before the fire. They had eaten the paddocks down to bare ground, and the fire had passed overhead, failing by some miracle to lodge a single spark in the old wooden homestead (which was unoccupied at the time). Had one of those sheep been present at that moment I would have offered it a word of endearment, so great was my gratitude.

New Year’s day (continued)

I returned to Pemberton in the afternoon, but everything was a bit of an anticlimax after that. The fires at Manjimup and Crowea were now well under control, and the containment lines at Muirillup were holding. We had a few minor alarums and excursions, even a couple of new fires, but I had maintained a strategic reserve (one fire crew and a small bulldozer on a low loader) at HQ just for this eventuality. Late in the afternoon the easterly finally dropped away, allowing a faint and cooling sou’wester to puff in from the coast. We needed only a skeleton crew for that night’s shift in the office, and old Ernie Percival was happy to volunteer.

January 2nd, 1970

Little happened overnight and in the morning scaling-down commenced. The officers and crews with the farthest to travel were thanked and sent home. Operations on the ground shifted from firefighting to mop-up and patrol. It would be a week or more before the fire edge could be classified as “safe”, but this was routine work that could be carried out by our own crews.

I also thanked the visiting officers at HQ, wished them a Happy New Year and saw them on their way. The office was tidied up, and the next day normal summer routine resumed.

The feursturm und drang (wildfire and stress) of another “festive season” was over.

Endnotes

1. Forestry firefighting in those days was organised as follows: there was an Incident Control Centre, usually in the District office, with a Controller who had overall responsibility for control of the fire. He was supported by officers responsible for intelligence, supply, communications and admin. Out at the fire, there would be a Control Point where the senior officer was designated the “Fire Boss”. He was in charge of the actual minute-to-minute firefighting operations. Reporting to him were Sector Bosses, who were responsible for different parts of the fire, and reporting to the Sector Bosses were the fire crews and machine operators. This system had been introduced by the Forests Department only a few months before the fires of New Year 1969/70. Over the succeeding decades they have been slightly upgraded, and the titles changed, but the system remains basically the same.

2.           This was before the introduction of aerial prescribed burning in the karri forest, and very little fuel reduction burning in State forests and national parks had been done in the years up to 1969. We would go burning in the spring and autumn, but rarely did more than a few small burns. Apart from areas burnt by wildfires in 1961, the bulk of the forest in the Crowea and Warren forests carried very heavy fuels. Fires in these long unburnt fuels were very difficult to control, even under relatively mild weather conditions. All of this changed dramatically in the early 1970s when the prescribed burning program expanded and became effective. All of this is well-described in the Bushfire Front book Fire from the Sky.

3.           In those days there was no organised rural volunteer fire brigade system as exists today. There were informal farmer brigades, but they were equipped only to tackle paddock fires. The did a good job on small grass fires on farms but were not trained or equipped to fight forest fires, especially in the karri country. Moreover, the Muirillup area back then was not well-developed agriculturally. It comprised a maze of old Group Settlement blocks, many of which had been abandoned in the 1930s, but still carried dead, ringbarked karri trees. On other properties the owner did not farm, but worked for the forestry or the timber industry. There was no Department of Fire and Emergency, nor was there a State-wide system which could marshal career and volunteer resources from all over. At that time, the Forests Dept stood alone as the sole organised fire management agency for the entire south-west.

4.           There was a town and a district forestry HQ at Shannon River in those days. My jurisdiction as OIC Pemberton district went as far east as the Deeside Coast Rd, beyond which it became the Shannon District. A few years after the events described here, Shannon HQ was closed and relocated to Walpole. Today the former townsite is a popular picnic and camping area.

5.           Lionel Dobson’s dramatic story of his experiences the night that Dwellingup burned is entitled Trouble at the Mill and was published in Tempered by Fire – the 1961 Western Australian bushfires (2011).