Fire comes close to Salvation Army properties
Blue Mountains residents, including Salvation Army officers, are today breathing a sigh of relief that the worst of the fire threat has eased.
As many Blue Mountains residents heeded warnings from authorities to evacuate if they weren’t prepared ahead of Wednesday 23 October’s extreme fire danger, Salvation Army officers in the Blue Mountains stayed – ready and prepared to defend their quarters and corps buildings.
“We had plans in place,” says Captain Phil Sharp, who with wife Gwen are corps officers at Springwood Corps. The corps and quarters are located in a quiet cul-de-sac surrounded by bushland.
“We had a caravan and we put all … our personal items that you would need if anything happened. We put that in the van and we parked that in a safe place over the other side of Springwood.”
Firefighters had backburned on one side of their property the day before, so Phil and Gwen felt confident to stay with their home. “It was important that we were there onsite because if the winds had changed anything could have happened regarding the spot-fires because we still had a lot of unburned bush on the other side of our quarters.”
Phil says the fire came to within 400 metres of the corps and quarters property and at one point during the day water-bombers were directly overhead.
“There were probably a couple of anxious moments for me, not so much for Gwen who comes from the mountains,” says Phil. “For me I hadn’t experienced this before … so there were a few anxious moments I have to admit!”
Further up the mountain in Katoomba, Upper Blue Mountains corps officers Jon and Leah Belmonte spent yesterday morning helping neighbours prepare their homes. Both have been involved in the Rural Fire Service in the past and lived through the 2003 Canberra Firestorm. They also marked the locations of fire-hydrants so fire-fighters could easily access them.
Their quarters is located on the brink of bushland. “When we saw a large plume of smoke and a big glow over the ridge-line, both Leah and I and the nearby fire-fighters put on our protective clothing and breathing filter masks. But thank God, the wind did change,” says Lieutenant Jon Belmonte.
For the Belmontes and the Sharps, now that the immediate danger is over, their focus turns back to helping those in need. Volunteers from the local corps’ are helping out at the newly created Salvation Army Relief Support Centre in Springwood.
“Yesterday was a pretty intense day in Springwood. You could have fired a shot-gun down the main street in the afternoon and you wouldn’t have hit anybody,”
says Phil. “In the coming days, people will be coming back to the mountains. We want to assist them to recover in whatever way we can.”
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