18 January 2003 firestorm - Mount Stromlo stories Tim Borough Fire Safety Officer, ANU Facilities & Services – interview, 28 January 2003

Bart Meehan – Tim, I just want to go through what happened from your perspective on Saturday. The reason I'm doing this is because I want to get a record, an oral history if you like, from the Division's point of view of Saturday's events for a couple of reasons. One, because such an extensive or fairly major disaster is an important part of this Division and the University's history. It will also give us an opportunity to have a look at it from a Divisional point of view – what we may want to do differently in the future. However, in that context I'm not interested so much in terms of what you think may or may not have worked on the day – there'll be plenty of time for us to do that analysis later. At this point, I'm just interested in really what your recollections of the day are. So we might just start out by getting you to describe what you were doing in the couple of days prior to that, on the Thursday/Friday.

Tim Borough – Alright. Well I'm actually… I should probably start at the beginning. The Bendora fire had been going for probably almost two weeks. I'd been on and off that fire ground for that period of time.

B – Because you're a volunteer fire fighter?

T – Volunteer Bushfire Fighter, that's correct. I was rostered back on that Thursday prior to Saturday 18th to go out that night and put a big back-burn in the Orroral Valley. Approximately 4 o'clock that afternoon I had a call from Ken from the ACT Fire Brigade warning me of the imminent threat to Mt Stromlo. Fire modelling had indicated that Stromlo was in direct paths and was probably going to be hit on Sunday. They weren't talking about the actual firestorm that did hit. They were basically talking about a bushfire in that sense what it was currently at. Friday I wasn't at work, I was resting, sleeping. I was rostered back on to the fire ground at 5 o'clock Saturday morning. As we turned up Saturday morning we got redeployed to Tharwa and at approximately 6.30am we were doing a crew changeover with the current crew. At that time when stories from the crew changeover were coming in that things were pretty bad on the Friday night. It was then that I was getting a little bit worried about Mt Stromlo, very worried about Mt Stromlo you could say. I rang ANU Security at about 7 o'clock to try and get somebody up there to try and coordinate… just to find out what was happening basically.

B – Sorry, in terms of finding out what was happening – you were concerned, or you were interested in knowing, whether or not the people on the site were aware of the progress of the fire? Whether they'd implemented any evacuation procedures?

T – Basically, yes. Just to see what preparation was happening, because we had also put a new pump hydrant system in there. The people on the site probably wouldn't have much of an idea how that worked. So I wanted to try and get somebody up there that had an idea of how it worked so, in the event of a threat, we could get an urban fire tanker up there to boost all the hydrants and protect the site. So I had this grand plan in my head but it didn't quite come off that way. Unfortunately, ANU Security were quite understaffed that day or under-resourced and they weren't able to send anybody up which I totally understand – that's the way things happen. I then got in contact with Florian Steinbacher and asked for his help.I also asked him to get in contact with Andy Smith (the plumber) because we were all involved in the same project, so that if Steinbacher could go up there and show them how it all worked. Basically talk to the people in Red Belly Black, say the threat is imminent and try and restrict people to the site. Basically tell them that evacuation essentially that day would probably happen, which he did.

B – Yes, I spoke with Florian on Friday and he's given me his recollections of what was going on up on the mountain when he got up there and subsequently. Let's just back to you personally at this point, before we talk about what you may have been doing in relation to Mt Stromlo. You were still with the volunteer fire crew and you were out at Tharwa?

T – That's right.

B –So what were you experiencing out there?

T – We were getting a lot of reports in as crews were coming in and they looked very blackened and had had a hard night essentially. They'd lost control of the fire overnight in the Tidbinbilla valley. That was the main threat area and they'd put in a lot of extensive back-burns, as well as around the Tharwa district, which probably saved that little district. So there was a lot of big hype and buzz around, I guess you could say at that time of the morning. As I said my main concern actually was Mt Stromlo. I wasn't really concerned with the fires at that time. I had got in contact with Vince O'Connor and with Graeme Blackburn who was on his way back from Gundagai I think it was.

B – Graeme was actually not there on the site early in the morning. He was coming back overnight wasn't he?

T – He was coming back.

B – And I'll talk with Graeme hopefully later in the week and just get his recollections of the day. I know you were in contact with Vince about a range of issues and you were updating him as best you could on the situation of the fire.

T – That's right, yeah. And on Thursday afternoon before we lost phone contact, I managed to get in contact with Keith Walker, Solomon Elijah and Vince just to tell them what I had been told from the ACT Fire Brigade.

B – And certainly, as I'd mentioned to you before, when the advice came from the field, we spoke with the ESB operations on this and that advice I think was… their advice to us was fair and reasonable, given what they thought the fire was at time, which was that they would be responding to any crisis at Mt Stromlo in accordance with their standard operating procedures. Who was to know that it wasn't a standard fire?

T – I think in all due respect to the ACT Fire Brigade, they made the right decision by not sending a pumper up there. I think if they did there'd be another blown up pumper and probably some dead fire fighters around.

B – Yeah. I think they'll certainly look at that in retrospect, but I mean we've all seen the devastation on the mountain and its – you don't have to be a fire expert to see that it was a quite unusual fire. The intensity was quite extraordinary and so one wonders whether or not any amount of fire fighters could really have done much to save the site. Just on going back to where you were – your crew was obviously sent out to replace other crews that were fighting the fire were they?

T – That's right. The regroup point was Tharwa so that's where all crews changed over and then we were redeployed to Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve.

B – You were telling me last week about your own personal experiences, which I think are interesting in the context of this whole history. That you were in with you crew up there and some of the sights you saw in terms of just the way the fire behaved were things that you had never seen before.

T – Absolutely incredible. We were at the nature reserve and decided to do a… take I guess a "reccy" you could call it, of what sites were important to the people out there, what buildings we needed to protect, and what enclosures we needed to protect from the imminent threat. So we were doing that, that was all ok. We started to combat the spot fires that were occurring. I guess they were quite small in comparison probably half hectare spot fires, going around putting those out. We then… I think it was approximately 1 o'clock (I can't quite remember the times) we had a call to protect one of the houses in the area that had caught alight. So we took the tanker down there and started putting the wet stuff on the hot stuff, as we say. And, probably within about a minute of putting water on the house, everything around us erupted in flame. It was a matter of behind us exploding flame, left of us, right of us, in front of us, above of us. It was called a burnover, a technical term that means everything around you is just engulfed. We dropped our hoses, jumped on the vehicle and got out of there as quick as we could. Now the driver, on driving out, subsequently hit another small fire fighting unit and immobilised them so they were stuck in the middle of it. We actually didn't realise it until a few hours later that we immobilised them. Going through the walls of flame we came out at the Tidbinbilla Business Centre, and there we progressed to start doing some active fire knockdown on the business centre that was starting to catch alight. The air conditioners on the roof, things like that. Then the fire storm hit us and that was, I guess you could say, a cyclonic episode lasting for about half an hour. One of the small cyclones was circling around the visitors centre for little while before actually taking off into town. We presume that was the one that hit Canberra.

B – So just explain to me what a fire storm is – literally a circular almost tornado-like movement of fire which simply surrounds an area a generates wind or….?

T – Basically yeah – we estimated the winds were about 150 kilometres an hour. The storm, instead of hail or rain, it was actually fire embers that were hitting us. Everything was just black and red, and the cyclone I'm talking about was actually a cyclone of fire circling the buildings and then just taking off wherever it was going. At the same time there was also fireballs. There just big balls of hot gas just flying along the ground.

B – What size are they?

T – Probably 100 ft across.

B – So balls of fire?

T – Balls of fire, and one of the photos I've got, I took the photo just before it hit a tree… just before the tree exploded! So it's quite an amazing phenomenon I've never seen anything like it in all of my life.

B – What was the sound like?

T – It was just like intense hail I suppose you could call it. Hail on a tin roof really. Amazing really… like a tropical storm.

B – And what about the temperature?

T – The temperature was actually, well very hard to gauge, because we were all in heavy gear. So, I mean, you're very hot anyway and it was probably the last thing we thought about because of the adrenalin. Really, we were just purely surviving on adrenalin and we were running on adrenalin. There was only 4 of us actually there, one fire fighting appliance, with about 30 people inside the centre looking on us to, sort of, save them – if you know what I mean?

B – So what were you doing during this fire storm? Were you trying to put out the fire?

T – We were actively suppressing fires around the visitors centre and protecting people inside.

B – So basically, wherever the embers fell trying to put out the fires.

T – Basically, yeah. Putting out the fires because the embers were everywhere. It was basically putting out fires in the air conditioning system – they kept catching alight. They had one of those air coolers, you know, that hession or whatever they are inside them. And all of the furniture and the trees around, especially right around the visitors centre, and also the vehicles, trying to protect those.

B – It's interesting that you say that there were 30 people in the visitors centre. The 30 people – why weren't the 30 people evacuated earlier?

T – They were basically staff… park staff… who drove bulldozers, graders, small fire fighting appliances, who worked in the Tinbinbilla Nature Reserve themselves.

B – So they were acting as part of the fire crew, basically trying to create fire breaks?

T – Doing things like that basically. And also doing all the catering for everybody. That was one of the main command centres or forward command centres so it was a big operational area for the fire operation. It just so happened that it (the fire) wasn't predicted to come that far.

B – So really the fire storm that you got caught in was not predictable? It suddenly hit you in such a way that you simply were left with trying to fight it? You had no advance warning that it was going to hit you?

T – Nothing at all, no. I mean the burnover was… I mean I guess we could have predicted the burnover and that's part of the hazard of bushfire fighting, but the storm that followed was just absolutely incredible. We'd never seen anything like it, especially for the valley where we're talking wide open spaces. After we came out of the nature reserve, we're talking a very big wide open space, no trees, select trees I'd say, just grasses and these fireballs were just zooming around as if everything was very flammable Whereas the flammable material out there is very low, it's just a little bit of stuff on the ground, dried grass on the ground and woodchips around the business centre.

B – So this lasted you said for about half an hour.

T – The main storm was about half an hour but the whole storm altogether was about two hours.

B – Two hours… and so presumably you were at the visitors centre for that full period of time.

T – Pretty much, a good hour and a half before we… A couple of NSW units turned up out of nowhere so we then left the NSW units with the business centre, and we went to the rest of the valley to try and see what was happening. All communication was lost. I got a little bit of mobile reception and got a few messages through to my wife, to Graeme from Mt Stromlo and ANU Security. So I got some messages out saying there is a big threat coming, and I think, just the time I got the message out, when Mt Stromlo went was about 15 minutes. So, after the main fire storm went through us, it was about half an hour before they sent the message out and, just calculating from speaking to people, it was 15 minutes.

B – About 15 minutes after the main fire storm had gone through Tidbinbilla visitors centre it hit Mt Stromlo?

T – Yeah and Duffy.

B – And obviously you were tied up for most of the day, probably into the evening fighting fires all through that area? When did you actually find out about Mt Stromlo and what had happened at Mt Stromlo?

T – It wasn't until the next morning. I just… after Tidbinbilla we basically... I had family out there as well, so I made sure they were all safe and made sure the valley was pretty good and well protected – just left little vehicles out there. Because we had no radio communications, our tanker was the only ACT one around essentially, so we took control of the fire out there until we could get an officer out to take control. We then asked to be redeployed into Canberra as soon as we got communications back, which was around about 4 o'clock. We then got redeployed to Farrer ridge if you know where that is, back of ... near Mawson, where there was a water tanker that was stuck and a fire coming towards it. So then basically we stayed for the rest of the night at Farrer ridge putting out fires and protecting properties and we got off the fire ground around about 11. All though that time I was trying to find out what was happening at Stromlo. No-one knew, no-one could tell me. I had a phone call from Peter Whelan, one our contractors, and he was stuck in Duffy at that time as well. So he told me that his house was saved, he'd stayed there all night protecting his house. After about 6 o'clock, we decided to go find Peter and see if he was OK. So we loaded the car with all medical supplies I could and off I went and found all the people I knew that lived in the areas of Kambah, Duffy and Holder and Weston. Just checking up to make sure everyone was OK. I found Peter, he was all right. Went to Mt Stromlo directly after that and what I saw up there was just… I wasn't prepared for it at all. I'd heard it was OK, and I'd heard it was gone, sort of. I had had so many conflicting reports so I had to go up there.

B – That's true, that's consistent with what we were getting on Saturday and Sunday morning, Saturday evening Sunday morning. At one point they advised the Visitors Centre was the only thing that burnt down and we know the Visitors Centre survived but a hell of a lot of others burnt down, but there was a lot of confusion about the extent of damage. So you went up sort of like around 7–8 o'clock?

T – It would have been probably about 8 o'clock by the time I got up there. Not long after I arrived, Vince O'Connor had arrived, Graeme Blackburn arrived, Alex Chryss and Jim Pollard arrived as well. Morbid curiosity.

B – What, generally was your impression of the site when you went up there?

T – I guess I was just heartbroken just seeing it and… funny, the first thing that went through my mind was that I'm glad I got to look through the Oddy telescope during Science Week. I did have that experience. Its just the history – Mt Stomlo's always been a place in my heart from a kid, going up there as a kid.

B – As I think I said to you last week, as sad as it is that the site was devastated the way it was, one of the things that I find most heartening is that all the activities that we did as a University meant that no… not a single person died on the site and literally speaking everything else can be rebuilt so I think success has to be measured in those terms not in terms of what a freak fire storm might do to buildings ….so… and we will rebuild Mt Stromlo.

T – Just to give you an indication of how quick it was I was speaking to Florian and a few other people who were at the site at the time – I think the police evacuated them… got everybody out… and Florian obviously was there as well, getting everybody out. He said he was pretty much the last person down the mountain – this was before the fire hit the mountain. By the time he got to Weston Creek passing the Police College he said RSBS was going up in that area.

B – Weston Creek campus, yes.

T – So that's how quickly and how fast the fire was spreading. It was overtaking him before he'd even got down the mountain and he said the fire was in front of him even though the forest next to him wasn't alight. Virtually the fires were in front of him… so… that's pretty amazing I thought.

B – Quite extraordinary. Now when you were up on the site on Sunday morning were you aware that a couple of people had stayed on the site?

T – No.

B – When did you actually find out about that?

T – Not until Monday.

B – Monday. And there was a subsequent story about a student who was asleep in the bachelors quarters who woke up to the sight of the ceiling on fire. When did you find out about that?

T – That was on Monday as well, yeah… I thought that was a pretty remarkable story, he's a very lucky lad.

B – Yes, extraordinary isn't it. But I mean there are all these sorts of stories in these events. I don't think Mt Stromlo could have survived in any set of circumstances.

T – Even from the start, yeah.

B – I said this morning to somebody who asked about the workshops, the wall wetting systems in the workshop, and I said I don't think it mattered how good the wall wetting systems were, they wouldn't have saved them.

T – It operated as it was designed.

B – Yeah, but unfortunately it felt the full brunt of the fire.

T – I actually think, just after investigating the workshop and the 74" telescope, that there were two fire storms actually coming through and they met as one sort of thing.

B – They joined?

T – Sort of yeah after. They accumulated on the top of the mountain, joined together then went through the rest of the Stromlo forest. Because, if you have a look at the south-western front, which is where the workshop was, the fire doors there were blown in so the fire actually entered the workshop from that side. Yeah, I'd say the wall wetting system would have actually activated as the windows blew… so the wall wetting system, even though it was designed to protect from radiant heat actually was activated from inside the building – from the fires from inside because the fire went through. Very similar with the 74" telescope where the massive big steel doors facing north-west were blown flat. So that sort of tells me that it had two massive fire balls, essentially storms coming up and then on each side they just hit. Because if we have look at the flame store it was untouched, so that sort of tells me that the fire ball came around, just missed the flame store, went straight into that side door and then into the workshop.

B – Yes, that's quite extraordinary isn't it?

T – It's absolutely amazing.

B – The flame store and the petrol bowser both were totally untouched… right next to the workshop, which was destroyed.

T – That's right, yeah, and also where the Exploratory is, only the outbuilding was burnt which was in the full front of the north-west fire. It seems like two massive big fire balls came up – one hit the 74" and one hit the workshop. They then cumulated in a massive big heat ball, I guess you could say – took out the admin building, the other telescopes and the director's residence. By then it had probably consumed a lot and then was looking for fuel. Yeah I think we're just very lucky that the other buildings, Duffield and Woolley I guess on the eastern side, it sort of looks like it's just sort of gone straight over, hit the pine forest behind it and then just driven itself down the hill.

B – It looks as though the wall wetting systems on Duffield and Woolley have also activated so it looks like a series of things worked in favour

T – Probably sprinkling of those buildings f*****g saved those buildings, especially as you can see entry points on the Woolley building where it's entered into the window. The sprinklers above it have all gone off as well so that stopped the Woolley building going up.

B – That's an important message for sprinkling of buildings?

T – I think so, yes. If those had been on the northern front I'd doubt their existence.

B – The reality is that the extent of the fire, as we know it now, and the power of the fire was greater than any basic systems to hold it off. But given the right combination of circumstances, those systems would help and, obviously in Duffield and Woolley, they did.

Mate, that's all I needed. Thanks very much.

T – Cheers, no worries at all.

B – Thanks for all your work.

T – My pleasure, thanks.

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