January 2022
January was quiet with only one callout on 23rd to a motor vehicle accident in Bilpin on Bells Line of Road.
Tragically, the brigade was also involved with the search for the missing child in Mt Wilson – joining police, SES and RFS crews from across the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury.
February 2022
We had an unusual call on 28th February with a power pole on fire on Bells Line of Road just past the Cut Rock.
These are difficult to fight because if you place a continuous stream of water on the live wires you’ll act as an earth to the electricity with disastrous results. The best approach was one where the water is kept moving in an arc through the pole, and the fire was satisfactorily extinguished.
March 2022
On March 6th we had a call to a landslip on Bells Line of Road near Coach House Place. We were joined on the job by Katoomba Fire and Rescue (343).
On 17th March we had a call to a truck fire on Bells Line of Road at Kurrajong and on 29th March we had a call to a motor vehicle accident on Bells Line of Road near Bellbird Avenue.
March was a busy month with the floods. We had several crews over several days helping with the clean up. Its dirty work. Check out Lucy Baranowski’s pics from last year.
April 2022
In April we responded to calls to two vehicle fires. The first was on April 1st and was quite minor:
The second was the next night at Shane Place and was much more severe with considerable damage to the Land Rover Defender:
We were back on Warks Hill Road on 7th and 8th with a tree over power lines on Warks Hill Rd:
April Brigade Meeting and Training
On April 4th we had our Brigade Meeting where part of the meeting is a formal meeting where we go over minutes and discuss brigade business including equipment, training, planning for Hazard Reductions and so on. The bulk of the time was spent on training and we got both the Cat 1 and the Cat 7 out and practiced pumping water to our Buoy Wall and then using it to fill the tankers and put out notional fires on the toilet block and in the scrub on the other side of the park.
The Buoy Wall is a very useful temporary water source. We deployed it on Burralow Road in the Black Summer fires.
Brigades 70 Year History
We’re trying to pull together the history of bushfires in the Kurrajong Heights area and our community’s recollections. See more on the website here: https://www.khrfs.org/brigade-history-70th-anniversary/
If you have a picture or a story to share with us please contact Julie Braithwaite on history@khrfs.org
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