Paul Sanderson had attended countless fires on countless stinking hot days in his 19 years as a volunteer with the North Rothbury Rural Fire Brigade.
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But there was something different when his pager went off just before dinner on Thursday.
“Paul spoke to his wife who told him she had a bad feeling about the fire and didn’t really want him to go,” NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said on Friday.
“She gave him a kiss and a hug and told him to be careful.”
Mr Sanderson, the deputy captain at North Rothbury, had also told his brigade mates that he couldn’t miss dinner at 8pm.
After 6pm, a massive southerly change hit the Stanford Merthyr fire ground and the Norther Rothbury crew was “flogged” before they retreated to fill the truck with water and take stock.
By 7pm, and as they were standing around the truck talking about the blaze, Mr Sanderson collapsed from a heart attack.
Despite the best efforts of his brigade mates, the 48-year-old never got home to have dinner with his wife, Deena.
“The brigade will miss him, the community will miss him,” Mr Fitzsimmons said on Friday.
“But more than anyone, his wife Deena and their children have lost someone irreplaceable. They have lost a husband, a soulmate, a dad and a grandfather.”
His shattered brigade mates, who recently had a secret vote to award Mr Sanderson with a life membership, penned a heartfelt letter about the main pillar of their unit.
“He stayed in the background but he was a leader,” they wrote.
“He was a gentle man who hated attention and limelight.
“He preferred to just get on with it and get the job done.”
Lower Hunter Rural Fire Service zone manager and personal friend Superintendent Jayson McKellar explained that Mr Sanderson’s unassuming nature belied the work he had performed during the almost 20 years he had devoted to the service.
“Very unassuming bloke ... someone who was very happy to be in the background and looking after and mentoring the young guys,” Mr McKellar said.