Meet the firefighters who were on the frontline of the Tathra bushfire
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It was the worst fire they'd ever experienced, and for many firefighters in the Bega Valley, it was one of the worst days of their lives.
On March 18, bushfires erupted in 20 separate incidents across the Bega Valley in south-eastern New South Wales.
Most of the fires were brought under control quickly, but one that began at Reedy Swamp north of Bega burnt through close to 1,000 hectares before jumping the Bega River and tearing through the small coastal community of Tathra.
By the following morning, 65 homes were destroyed and 48 more were damaged.
Adam Wiggins has been with the Rural Fire Service (RFS) for 26 years, and the captain of the Tathra RFS brigade for more than 10 years.
"What I saw on that Sunday, anything I knew about firefighting went out the window," Mr Wiggins said.
"There was nothing you could have done to stop that."
Mr Wiggins' day began with his son and friends at a fishing competition on the Bega River. Around midday, he saw smoke across the river and put his crew on standby.
After a callout to a fire on the outskirts of Bega, Mr Wiggins was on his way back to Tathra when he heard that the fire had jumped the Bega River and was about to impact on houses in Tathra.
He passed his partner and kids as they were heading out of town. He didn't see them again until the following Wednesday.
Mr Wiggins said the Fitbit he was wearing on the day gave the best record of how the next few hours unfolded.
"For half an hour, my heart rate was 168 beats per minute. I'm assuming that's when the fire hit," Mr Wiggins said.
"Things were burning everywhere, but you couldn't focus on that," said Andrew Constable, captain of the Tanja RFS brigade.
"You just had to work out what was going to lead to [fire] burning a house."
The houses most vulnerable to ember attack had windows or doors left open, trees close to the house or leaves in the gutters.
"Once the fire was inside the house there was nothing we could do," Mr Wiggins said.
"We just had to try to save the house next door to it."
Captain of the Fire and Rescue NSW brigade in Bega, Gerard Hanscombe, said the hardest thing was seeing mates' houses catching on fire and burning, and not being able to do anything.
"You'd be putting water on a fire, and something would explode behind you. Trees were bursting into flames, gas cylinders going off, it was horrific," he said.
After exhausted crews of first responders came off duty, the night shift began.
Richard Gallimore from the Tathra RFS brigade said there were about 50 trucks that night.
"We were spread very thin," he said.
"There were three of us on our truck, and our average age was just under 70."
With his wife Sally, Mr Gallimore fought the fire from 7:30pm until 9am the next morning.
"I can't think of anything that a healthy woman can't do in the brigade that a man could do," Sally Gallimore said.
"It would be great to have more women in active firefighting.
"It was a collective effort. But there were a lot of us out there — the RFS brigades, Fire and Rescue, the police, National Parks and Forestry. We all came together."
'Thank you, firies'
For the next week, the community became accustomed to the sight of fire trucks as crews continued to work, putting out spot fires and helping to remove debris.
Signs appeared outside houses and along roadsides in Tathra and Bega thanking the firefighters.
Tathra resident Luke Hamilton's house survived the fire, but the family trampoline was full of holes burnt by embers.
He sprayed a thank you message on the trampoline for water bomber helicopters to see as they flew overhead.
"I think Tathra was lucky in that we didn't lose any major infrastructure or assets," said Andrew Constable.
"If the wharf had gone [or] the school, the pub — those things make a big difference."
"We lost 65 houses, but there are a hell of a lot of houses still here. And number one is we didn't lose any people."
Topics: bushfire, community-and-society, fires, disasters-and-accidents, bega-2550, tathra-2550, nsw
