The tinder box that is the Lower Hunter burst into flames again this week after what investigators believe to be an act of a firebug.
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People, animals, homes and businesses were all put at needless risk on Wednesday as a raging bushfire annihilated more than 700 hectares of land in the Kurri Kurri area.
Accounts from residents and business owners have surfaced detailing the lucky escapes that were fortunately the case across the board.
Trevor Reynolds watched the blaze make a beeline for his Mitchell Avenue business and scrambled to put out spot fires that started in the back lot of the property.
“It was so hot, so fast and so intense – it was pretty scary,” he said.
In the 40-plus degree heat, brave firefighters – from the NSW Rural Fire Service and Fire and Rescue NSW – saved every home and business that came under threat of the fast-moving and erratic inferno, and no lives were lost.
But, as the mopping up began, investigators were furious that such a tremendous risk appears to have been the result of a deliberately lit fire.
And it’s not the first Hunter bushfire thought to have been deliberately started recently.
The problem has attracted the attention of Strike Force Tronto – the NSW Police investigators specialising in bushfires.
“They are putting their local communities at very grave risk; the people, their houses, their businesses and their livelihoods all at risk by their abject acts of stupidity,’’ Central Hunter police commander Superintendent Craig Jackson said on Thursday.
“You have people lighting fires in appalling weather conditions knowing they are going to go and knowing it is going to put people and property at risk.’’
Anyone who would knowingly put lives and property at serious risk by starting a bushfire – let alone in the middle of summer under sweltering, windy conditions – deserves to be caught and held responsible under the law.
On the other hand the courageous men and women – some of them volunteers – who risk their lives by jumping into a fire truck and heading towards trouble, while many others are being encouraged to go the other way, deserve our deep gratitude for the tireless and valuable contribution they make to keep our communities safe.
Hopefully they won’t be so busy for the rest of the summer.