A Rural Fire Service (RFS) commander has told an inquest he did not ignore concerns raised by an air attack supervisor about a back-burn during the Black Summer bushfires, which jumped containment lines and destroyed 100 homes west of Sydney.
New South Wales Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan has started examining the planning and execution of back-burning operations during the 2019-20 emergency as part of wider inquest into the deadly fires.
James Carter, a qualified fire behaviour analyst with the RFS, had been deployed to the Gospers Mountain Incident Management Team (IMT) as a divisional commander.
On Tuesday he was questioned about the decision to start a back-burn around the Grose Valley-Mount Wilson area on December 14, 2019, which was conducted with the aim of helping to contain the southern edge of the fire in the Blue Mountains.
Mr Carter told the court fire crews had a small window of opportunity to conduct the burn because volatile weather conditions had been forecast for the following days and residents wanted the RFS to act.
"There was a lot of anxiety in the community to commence the burning as early as possible," he said.
Mr Carter said the location was chosen after two and six millimetres of rain fell across the fire ground in the days prior.
"If the fuel is not in a state to be fully consumed, what you do is you end up with what we would call a patchy burn," he said.
"Given the potential for extreme fire danger that year, once the fuels had dried out, we were very clear that we needed to put a high-quality burn in to remove as much fuel as possible to make sure the fire couldn't run through remaining unburnt fuels."
Mr Carter said that short of a large air tanker, he felt "very comfortable" about the amount of resources available at the time to conduct the burn, despite more than 100 fires burning across other parts of the state.
But Mr Carter said the weather changed within hours of the back-burn starting and the fire broke containment lines.
It eventually burned through more than 1 million hectares and destroyed 100 homes at Lithgow, Clarence, bell, Dargan, Bilpin, Currajong and Blackheath.
Concerns raised, inquest hears
In a written statement tendered to the court, National Parks and Wildlife Service air attack supervisor Chris Banffy claimed he "raised concerns" with the IMT about the speed at which the back-burn was moving and alerted the team to spotting outside of containment lines.
In the statement, Mr Banffy said he communicated through radio messages and had landed his plane to speak with the team in person about what he had seen from the air.
Mr Carter told the court no entry was made in his log about the interaction because it had not seemed significant enough at the time.
"My log was being kept by the comms van … I wasn't physically writing my log myself," he said.
Under cross-examination by Mr Banffy's legal representative, Jennifer Single SC, Mr Carter denied that he had ignored the concerns.
"I don't see it as a concern being raised," he said.
"I see this as a piece of intelligence."
Mr Carter also disputed claims that local knowledge from some brigade captains was not considered when the decision to conduct the back-burn was made.
"We were aware that we needed everybody to be on the same page in order to make the strategy work," Mr Carter said.
"I would say that [the strategic backburn] was a strongly vocalised preferred option by every stakeholder."
A million hectares razed
The Gospers Mountain fire ended up burning through one million hectares of bushland over 79 days and became the largest bushfire in Australia's recorded history.
It was first ignited by a lightning strike in remote bushland in October 2019.
Mr Carter told the court he believed that the "best decisions" had been made in relation to the back-burn, given the circumstances.
"I've had many sleepless nights over this and there's very little I can point to and say I wish we'd done, or I think we could have done things better," he said.
"We made the best decisions that we could in a really complex, difficult, enormous operation.
"I stand by making those decisions and taking that action as opposed to not doing anything … which I believe, ultimately, would have exposed far more areas to fire impact."
Kenneth Pullen, an experienced member for the Hawkesbury Rural Fire District who worked as a group captain at the time, supported Mr Carter's evidence and told the court he stood by the decisions made in relation to the back-burn.
"I've agonised over this for last whatever number of years," he said.
"Given the likelihood that if we did nothing there would have been many thousands of people impacted in the Blue Mountains and potentially Western Sydney … I can't see myself ever reaching a different decision than the recommendation to go on the 14th."
Mr Pullen blamed the change in the forecast weather for the devastating outcome of the back-burn.
"We were informed we would have a significant window of opportunity under a south-easterly influence."
The inquest is also expected to hear evidence from witnesses involved in a back-burn on the Currowan fire, which resulted in dozens of homes being destroyed at Conjola Park on the NSW South Coast.
Editor's note 17/5/2023: An earlier version of this article referred to Mr Banffy as a pilot. It has been updated to reflect his position as an air attack supervisor.
