Doreen Peters has spent half of her life feeding our bravest heroes through the Rural Fire Service (RFS) canteen, but now the time has come for her to hang up her apron.
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Ms Peters' food service began when the Hartley RFS in NSW purchased a mobile canteen truck from the Blue Mountains RFS and commenced operation in 1979.
"It [the truck] was stored in a shed for a few years. When when we had fires, women were feeding just sandwiches, coffee and water to the men, Ms Peters said.
"We said "We've already got a canteen. Why don't we get it out and use it?" So I put up my hand."
The truck was driven to Ms Peters' property, where she would clean it up and have it successfully checked by the health inspector.
"That's how I became a manager of the Hartley Bushfire Brigade," Ms Peters said.
Ms Peters would spend 23 years attending monthly cattle sales in Hartley with the mobile canteen to raise money to provide free meals for the firefighters during bushfire periods.
According to Ms Peters son David Peters, who is Group Captain of RFS Lithgow District, the canteen operation was self-funded so there were minimal financial impacts to the organisation.
"The canteen set itself a target to self finance any food operations that are needed," Mr Peters said.
"So when we have the next big fire locally, there wouldn't have to be money that came out of the local budget or out of the council budget for food."
Through the last four decades Ms Peters has been serving food to exhausted heroes in every local major bushfire and smaller operations.
"Every major fire in the district, I've been at. I've been at smaller fires and the hazard reductions," Ms Peters said.
"I've also called out by police, Truck accidents, I've been called to give coffee to doctors while they've been retrieving patients.
"I've been to search and rescues, drownings, road accidents. We were at the Howard's [fireworks factory] explosion and in the fires i've been out to Wolgan."
During major fires Ms Peters has worked consecutive days to ensure everybody had replenishment during those tough times. She once fed firefighters at the Clarence Plateau for 35 days without a break.
"I've slept in the canteen so I could be on the job to feed them breakfast, because right out on the plateau there's no access to food," Ms Peters said.
Ms Peters was 81 when the Gosper's Mountain fire devastated the Lithgow region, but her age didn't stop her from working in the canteen for what seemed like a never-ending duration for the area.
"I worked on Gospers Mountain for 58 days without a break," Ms Peters said.
"Some days, we did 300 meals in a day."
Ms Peters and her volunteers even worked Christmas day during the Gospers Mountain fire to ensure the firefighters didn't miss out on a good meal.
"On Christmas Day, we put on Christmas dinner, Woolworths cooked the pork, a volunteer cooked turkeys. We made up salads, the girls in the canteen made trifles in individual containers. I made Christmas pudding and with custard in it," Ms Peters said.
"After all they've been through for months, and then to think that they were missing out on Christmas. Well, they didn't miss out on Christmas lunch."
There is no doubt that Ms experienced some tough times on the front line, but one of the hardest experiences for her was during the tragic Lithgow bushfire in 1997.
Highly experienced firefighters Col Eather and Edward Hughes were killed while battling bushfires in dangerous conditions on Scotsman's Hill.
The tragic day has remain ingrained in the mind of the community and Ms Peters is no exception.
"I fed them [Mr Eather and Mr Hughes] at 2 o'clock in the morning. We come off the mountain at about 2:30 in the morning," Ms Peters said.
"We were notified at 2 o'clock in the afternoon that they'd been burnt to death."
"That was a shocking experience because I then had to go up to Clarence and feed all of the firefighters."
Mr Peters recalled the aftermath of the tragedy for the firefighters that was in the moment still overtaken by the ongoing effort to extinguish the fires.
"They didn't really get the opportunity to grieve too much because so much was still going on," Mr Peters said.
"It was a sit back and reflect moment afterwards."
During her years of service Ms Peters has fed the likes of Dick Smith and met the Prince and Princess of Wales during a function in Winmalee after the Blue Mountains Bushfires in 2013.
Ms Peters received the Lithgow Citizen of the Year award on Australia day in 1998 and the prestigious Australian Fire Service Medal in 2011.
While this extraordinary chapter of her life has closed, Ms Peters will still be continuing to service her community.
"I'll continue my volunteer work with the Lithgow show," Ms Peters said.
" I feed all the judges, stewards, volunteers for five days with some help."
Ms Peters also volunteers at the St John's Church in Hartley.
Ms Peters wanted to acknowledge every volunteer who has helped her with the canteen throughout the years.
"It wouldn't have existed without them," she said.
Throughout all the hard times, Ms Peter said there have been lovely times through meeting a variety of people and banding together during those difficult moments in the community.
"It has been a full life and I will miss that part of it," Ms Peters said.
Reidun Berntsen
Reidun is a Journalist and writer who lives in a country town 3 hours from Sydney, Australia. From a young age, Reidun has been in love with words and the infinite possibilities they bring. Stories, features and poems have been a major part of her writing career.
Reidun is a Journalist and writer who lives in a country town 3 hours from Sydney, Australia. From a young age, Reidun has been in love with words and the infinite possibilities they bring. Stories, features and poems have been a major part of her writing career.
