BURNT out landholders in the Dunedoo district are demanding to know why they were left to defend their burning properties while firefighters watched on from the comfort of their trucks, some even playing cricket at a nearby school.
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More than 5000 stock were destroyed along with 35 homes when the Sir Ivan fire swept from Leadville to Cassilis on February 11 and 12.
The fire eventually burnt 54,000 hectares, impacting 138 landholders.
“I lost 99.2 per cent of my 1800-acre property and to this day I haven’t had a single fire truck on my place,” said Paula Palmer of ‘Wongalea’, a property on Vinegaroy Road near Cassilis.
The fire killed 480 of Ms Palmer’s sheep, but 130 cows were saved.
“I’ve never felt as alone as I did on that weekend. Fire crews were playing cricket at the Cassilis school while we were getting burnt out,” she said.
“I didn’t expect them to be up fighting the front on the Sunday but I did think they would come afterwards.”
Ms Palmer was among a group of devastated landholders who gathered in Cassilis on the weekend to demand answers from the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS).
NSW RFS acting manager for the Liverpool Range zone, Tim Butcher, told the packed town hall the RFS provided the greatest good and the greatest amount of people possible.
He said the reason firefighters were seen across the district sitting back and watching on Sunday afternoon was because the fire’s incident controller, based in Coonabarabran, had directed all crews to seek safe ground.
