By Graham Davis

Holiday-makers enjoy a summer’s day at the beach while HMAS Creswell is threatened by a serious fire front.

Photo: ABPH Neil Richards

A RAN Sea King puts herself in the line of fire while trying to protect HMAS Creswell late last year.

Photo: ABPH Neil Richards

Serco fire chief Mark Kinnear casts an eye over the damage done by a bushfire in the vicinity of HMAS Creswell. He said that firefighters at the nearby airfield were cut off, while others sprayed the ordnance building with water as a precautionary measure.

Photo: Phil Barling

For the third consecutive summer the Royal Australian Navy and its contractors have been called out to save life and property from rampaging bushfires.

As they did against blazes in the Shoalhaven and Canberra areas in previous years, the Navy and its helpers did great work, perhaps not with flags flying but certainly with red lights flashing and sirens sounding.

Late December 2003 saw HMAS Creswell (CAPT Andrew Cawley) and the RAN’s Jervis Bay airfield, range and Ship Survivability School come under intense fire attack.

At one stage more than 300 people, including 100 campers, 50 residents, 65 young cancer patients and 115 Camp Quality carers took refuge on the Quarterdeck and sports field of HMAS Creswell.

“Flames came up to the fences of the married quarters at Creswell,” said manager for the southern region of garrison support contractor Serco Sodhexo Colin Shaw.

“For a time firefighters at the airfield were cut off. To protect the ordnance building they sprayed it with water,” said Serco fire chief for the region Mark Kinnear.

The bushfire crisis began on December 18 when a small fire was detected near the Botanic Gardens close to the Booderee National Park to the southwest of the RAN’s Creswell and JB Airfield.

The fire was contained by December 19.

“On Monday, December 22 it re-ignited,” head of the Shoalhaven Rural Fire Service SUPT Adam Rogers told Navy News.

“The fire ran quickly for about nine to ten kilometres and soon had a ten-kilometre front.

“The Navy’s airfield and its buildings, HMAS Creswell, the National Parks Visitors Centre, and several villages including Hyams Beach were put under threat. I was told flames reached 10 metres (30 feet).”

He said the flames swept through two camping grounds in the park destroying some personal effects left behind by around 100 fleeing campers.

Also heavily involved in the fire attack were, once again, the Sea King helicopters of 817 Squadron
(CMDR James Tobin).

On December 22, Sea King Shark 05 under the command of LCDR Paul Lea and Shark 10 led by LCDR Rob Gagnon, repeatedly lifted water from a nearby lake and dumped it on flames to the east and west of HMAS Creswell.

The following day, exchange Royal Navy pilot LCDR Paul Hannigan and his crew took Shark 10 into the air to continue attacks on the flames.

“The work done by the Navy helicopters and the Serco fire crews was responsible for reducing the fire threat and damping down the flames,” SUPT Rogers said.

817 Squadron’s Operations Officer LEUT Mathew Bradley said: “The tasking at the Jervis Bay Range facility was very successful as spot fires that were extinguished by 817 were upwind, within 100 metres of the facility and had not been detected by firefighters on the ground.”

Five civilian water-bombing helicopters joined the RAN’s aircraft on December 23.

Colin Shaw said that for 12 hours HMAS Creswell was cut off by flames from the rest of the Shoalhaven.
“We recalled as many Serco firefighters to duty as we could. Eight returned.

“Serco catering staff worked late into the night preparing food for the campers and residents who had taken refuge at Creswell.”

Earlier in the day it was a terrifying scene at the Jervis Bay Range as the fire swept through the adjoining bushland and across the facility.

The Serco firefighters put in some extraordinary shifts with Mark Kinnear working 30 hours with just one hour’s sleep.

Creswell’s Commanding Officer CAPT Andrew Cawley and his Executive Officer CMDR Henry Pearce activated the base’s Operations Centre and the program devised from experiences gained during the 2001 bushfire emergency in the area.

The fire emergency was over by December 24 with local fire crews patrolling over the Christmas break.

More than 2500 hectares of park and Commonwealth lands were burnt out, however no buildings were lost or persons injured.

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