Robbie Graham AFSM joined the Goolmangar Brigade in the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) in 1969 - when he was 21 - after lighting a fire that “got away from him”. 

He still lives in Goolmangar today and after more than 50 years of service, he has been awarded an Australian Fire Service Medal. It’s a meritorious award given for outstanding service as part of the national Australia Day 2020 Honours awards. Robert shares with The Lismore App his story of helping communities through the years, fighting fires and the changing times.

When I lit a fire that got away from me in 1969, all the neighbours came to help and we contained it quick. But I wanted to also be there to help the neighbours, so I joined the RFS.

I had a lot of enthusiasm then. Being in the RFS is about dedication. You drop everything else and do what you need to do there. The whole service is rewarding in itself because you always meet so many nice people from different zones and states. I’ve done more travel with the RFS than I have with my wife. The RFS is one big family.

I was into dairying and when I would get called out, my wife would have to run the farm.

I joined as a volunteer and volunteers don’t get paid, I made the statement that if we got paid I wouldn’t be in it, you join the service for what you can do for the community. Hopefully, the community will also say what can I do for you. If I get bogged - will you be there?

Now, I’m a group officer and look after 11 brigades in my group area. 

In 1970, I became a group captain and didn’t get fully involved in the RFS for a few years because of my involvement in dairying, and I took on roles on cooperatives and boards. 

As the years went by, I’ve seen some hairy situations, but I have never yet been to a fire I felt threatened or scared of. You just go in there and do what you are trained to do, put it into practice and come home at the end of the day. 

My biggest fear would be to lose a crew member and I’ve never asked anyone to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself. 

I can often take a strike team of five trucks out with up to 20 persons. You take them out and you have to bring them home safe and sound, safety is number one priority and the fire comes after that.

Changes to regulations

Regulations have really changed in the whole service over the years. 50 years ago, in the old branch, we had the wet bag scenario where all your neighbours came to give you a hand as the years progressed, you need to be accredited to be a firefighter.

In the early years John Mowerhead was our fire control officer and all we did for our basic firefighter course was sit in the Lismore City Hall and read through some modules.

Today, you need to do a basic firefighter course to get onto a fireground. It’s a basic four day course of theory and practical. You come out with your little badge on your shirt - BFF Basic Fire Fighter and you feel proud as punch, then as time goes on, that becomes insignificant. Then you get to be a village firefighter, to advanced firefighter, to a crew leader, to a group officer. You rip off the old badge and put the next one on, there’s a real thrill to doing that. 

Today, we have an influx of new members coming on and we are not sure how we are going to handle them We might have to put more courses on than normal. – there’s only two a year now. Some brigades are looking at 60 new members, others 30 odd. Throughout the state there will be thousands that want to get into the system.

Early days

In our brigade, our very first appliance (truck) we had was a trailer. With a pump on the back. I remember the first fire, it was around 7am and the pager went off that there was a house on fire on Keerong Road. I said I would respond and they asked if I wanted any backup, so Fire and Rescue were sent and they got there just ahead of us.

We got our pump started but I didn’t really know if it was going to start. I’d only taken over a month before as captain. We plugged into the 5000 gallon concrete tank they had there. The next thing they ran out of water and said they had to go back to fill up. Here we are pumping merrily away and we completed the whole job off. Back then their trucks could only pump out, not in.

Our next appliance was an ex-army truck, but it was so slow getting there. As a community we put $500 into the Lismore City Council to buy it.

Brigade meetings were held at the Goolmangar Hall until the brigade shed was built in 1984. I was made captain of the brigade in 1983 until the amalgamation with the Coffee Camp Brigade.

At the time, with the construction of the station, they supplied us with materials to build the station. They gave us $10,500 and we put it up ourselves.  

Then we had no radio communication, it was by carrier pigeon. Then, when we got radios, we thought ‘fabulous’. Then we went to digital radios. Today the system we use gives us pretty good coverage, but we still get black spots and have to try to relay messages – we have fireground radios where we can talk to individual trucks and don’t have to relay back to Casino all the time. 

Now the system is a GRM a tracking device installed in the trucks, but it’s not switched on yet. When it is, we’ll know where any truck is at any time - which is good because some of these trucks do get lost. They may go up a firetrail, do a 180 and not know where they are. I’ve had times when I’ve thought ‘am I going to get out of here?’. You usually have a scribe with you who uses the ipad to get directions back out.

Technology, appliances, equipment and trucks are getting better all the time. 

Incidents 

I’ve been to over 200 incidents over the time. We don’t just do fires like bush fires and grass fires. I’ve done 16 house fires in my time in the local area. We do a lot of motor vehicle accidents which is tough if you are the first response. Today, Fire and Rescue and Ambulance usually beat us – their system is faster. Our pager system has a rerouting system through Casino and can give us delays. If my pager goes off and I’m up the paddock it could take me 30 minutes to get to the station. 

Once we are on scene, we stand Fire and Rescue down. Technically we are fire protection only and sometimes you have to do traffic control – if a truck is parked over the roads we need to look at safety aspects.

When you get to go out on section 44’s (State-wide emergency) like recently, it’s a different scenario. I usually a three day deployment and travel on to a new area.

Burning control

In our districts, grass fires are the main fires we put out - the fire starts on roadways from cigarette butts. With open country we can contain them before they get to any bush areas. In the plantation forests further south, fires are often from fuel build up. 

Years ago, you could go into forests and get firewood. But you can’t now. The regulations say it needs to be left as habitat which I don’t dispute, but after the situation we’ve been through with more than a billion animals dead we need to see changes. With a log build up, you will have fire problems. It only take one person to light a fire and you have a catastrophic incident.

Aboriginal people used to cultural burn in times when there was lesser impact. I’m the chairman of the bushfire management committee I requested a few years ago that all 48 local brigades come up with one hazard reduction burn annually – but people didn’t want to give up their weekends to do someone else’s burning.

 But what happens now, when it all hits the fan? They are out there for weeks. Now, wouldn’t a couple of weekends be better than a few weeks?

We have to look at hazard reduction burns internally and externally. A controlled burn is far easier to manage than an out of control burn where the winds change every five minutes.

Recent fires

The recent fires are the worst I’ve ever seen and the most devastation there’s ever been. The ferocity and speed of 70 km/hour winds is unstoppable and you think ‘I have to get out of here’. If safety is on the line and we are put in jeopardy, we’ll be told to pull out. 

When we were up at Rover Park on the last fire, I was in a valley and the wind changed ten times in half an hour and a spotto (spot fire) started. We can get a weather report but when you are there, it changes fast.

Over on Long Gully, near Tenterfield, the winds were sucked through the valley. We had 100km/hr plus winds at 2am in the morning.

When we are on the fireline, we know when it’s safe to put a backburn in, but we need to get approval to do it. Sometimes it takes hours for the approval to come through and that window is exhausted. Sometimes for safety they tell us to pull out now, but it might now be convenient or easy to do.

With fires, you can normally anticipate what’s going to happen and all crew brigade leaders should be able to read that weather. 

A lot more fires today are being lit by people – we never had that before. This year with the drought, everything was tinder dry. In a normal season, there will be more moisture content. Without the recent rain, we would still have crews from up here going down there.

Fires Near Me

Last year, the fire season started in February with fires in Tabulam that spread. Then they came up again in August, in the Pretty Gully area. We spent days there - then all these other ones kicked off. Mount Nardi was in November. I was in Woodenbong and I was told to have Monday off and to be in Mount Nardi from Tuesday to Saturday. 

That fire was only just taken off the Fires Near Me website recently, simply because there were still pocket logs were lying in with wind sparking them up and these were being patrolled by the community.

If you take them off the fires near me, once you go again, you have to create another incident in the whole system which is a big issue for fire control. 

Tired

In fires now, I nominate myself for what duration I’ll spend on the fireground. I could be all day until 10pm at night and it gets tiring.

I move around a lot as group officer – so I’m not on any one fire for the whole duration. You are supposed to do three day batches and then stand down, but some people don’t - they think ‘I want to be up there’ and if they are in their little patch, you don’t stop them.

Fatigue is a big issue. When you go out there day after day and get out of normal sleep pattern, it takes its toll. We have tried to address these issues in the past on section 44s. That’s why they stipulate you can only do 12 hours on the fireline, but you have two hours travel to the fire line and again to home. Then you are up again early and after three days it hits you. 

A lot of the other group officers don’t have the situation we have here, when we run properties as well. After four months of fires, we knew we had to start looking at these things. A lot of these fire fighters are workers and need income, they often take off time from work and maybe take annual leave. 

Disaster response

After the recent fires, there’s a lot of devastation throughout the country and communities devastated by fires are now responding to the call - a lot of people are looking after neighbours and people further afield. 

I see that the national fundraising for the RFS is at about $449 million dollars. Governments are coming on board, but who controls the money and how will it get to its final destination? There’s a lot of questions that need to be answered yet. 

It’s a lot of money I hope it goes int to right areas and the correct people get it. As brigades, we are limited in how we can spend money wisely and be seen by communities as to where. I’ve been put on notice to think about where we can spend this money the public are donating. Our fire stations and trucks are owned by council, radios are RFS supplied. It will get sticky in dividing up funds.

The Tuntable Falls community raised $26,000 that was distributed into a few brigades.

About Robert Graham AFSM:

During his long service with NSWRFS he has held the positions of Captain, Deputy Captain, Brigade Training Officer, Brigade Callout Officer, Treasurer, Secretary, President, Permit Officer, Deputy Group Captain and Group Captain. He still currently holds the positions of Permit Officer and Group Captain. He is also a member of the District Training Team and was awarded Life Membership of Goolmangar Brigade in 2009. 

He is also Chair of the Zone's Bush Fire Management Committee and sits on the Zone Liaison Committee. He is the instigator and driving force behind the Zone Exercise, drawing together Brigades from within the Zone and neighbouring Zones to participate in a skill-honing day of exercises.