Firefighters broke down in tears on Friday afternoon as they laid flowers and paid tributes to their two mates killed battling a blaze near Sydney.
Volunteers Andrew O’Dwyer, 36, and Geoffrey Keaton, 32, were killed on Thursday evening when their truck rolled off the road after hitting a fallen tree at Buxton, south of Sydney.
Their colleagues were seen sharing embraces and wiping away tears at Horsley Park Rural Fire Brigade in Sydney on Friday.
Mr O’Dwyer and Mr Keaton, who were both fathers, had been fighting fires for more than a decade and were remembered as heroes by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who is in Hawaii on holiday.
Members of the Horsley Park Rural Fire Service broke down in tears as they remembered the firefighters at a memorial on Friday
A memorial service was held for the two volunteers at the Horsley Park Rural Fire Brigade in Sydney on Friday as their fellow firefighters sobbed into each others arms
Andrew O’Dwyer (left) and Geoffrey Keaton (right) were killed when their truck rolled off the road after hitting a fallen tree last night at Buxton, south of Sydney
Friends and family dropped off flowers to the memorial on Friday after the two fathers tragically died on Thursday night
‘They were bravely defending their communities with an unmatched spirit and a dedication that will forever set them apart amongst our most courageous Australians,’ Mr Morrison said in a statement.
‘Their sacrifice and service saving lives and saving properties will be forever remembered. I wish those injured all the best in their recovery.’
Just hours before his death Mr O’Dwyer – a father-of-three – shared a video of him and a colleague battling a blaze.
Mr Keaton had risen to the role of deputy captain after joining the Horsley Park RFS brigade in 2006.
Both Mr O’Dwyer and Mr Keaton – who has a son – were less than a week out from Christmas with their families.
In a show of respect for the two dead volunteers, flags will be flown at half-mast throughout NSW on Friday.
‘I understand they were a pretty tight-knit group,’ RFS deputy commissioner Rob Rogers said on Friday morning.
‘This is quite a tight brigade and that will impact significantly on that group.
‘At the end of the day everybody feels for these people and their families… people have got to try and put that aside and keep going.’
RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told reports on Friday: ‘There is a definition of hero out there and these two absolutely line up to it and we owe it to honour them and remember them,’ he said.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian met with the firefighters after the loss of Mr O’Dwyer and Mr Keaton and said it was an ‘honour’ to spend time with them.
‘Not only do we express our deepest sympathy to the families of heroes Geoff and Andrew, but our thoughts are also with their extended family- the Horsley Park RFS brigade,’ she tweeted.
Three other firefighters who were in the truck with Mr O’Dwyer and Mr Keaton were rushed to hospital.
Mr O’Dwyer (centre) leaves behind his wife Melissa (left), young daughter Charlotte (right) and two young boys
Mr Keaton and Mr O’Dwyer’s were killed after their RFS truck (pictured) crashed into a fallen tree and rolled
Mr O’Dwyer (far left) stands in front of the truck he was riding in on Thursday night with his Horsley Park RFS colleagues and Australian Idol winner Shannon Noll
Firefighters in the Blue Mountains are meanwhile desperately battling to contain a blaze – which on Friday crossed the Bells Line of Road – burning near the outskirts of the town of Bilpin
In Balmoral and the neighbouring town of Bargo, NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian said 20 homes have been destroyed, while another 20 were lost in Buxton
In a separate incident, two firefighters were placed in induced comas after being overrun by flames at Bargo, while another three were injured.
A 56-year-old man suffering burns to his face and legs and a 28-year-old woman with burns to her face both had to be airlifted to Concord Hospital in ‘serious conditions’.
It’s feared some 40 homes were lost in Buxton, Balmoral, Bargo and surrounding areas on Thursday, as the Green Wattle Creek blaze tore through the Wollondilly Shire.
That blaze remained at emergency warning level early on Friday, along with the huge Gospers Mountain fire in the north-west of Sydney.
The neighbouring Kerry Ridge blaze and a fire on the NSW South Coast at Currowan were downgraded to a ‘watch and act’ alert.
It comes with conditions set to worsen tomorrow, as Australia prepares to eclipse the hottest day on record for a third consecutive day.
A searing heatwave combined with 100km/h winds fuel one of the nation’s worst ever bushfire crisis.
Melbourne is forecast to nudge 44C on Friday, while temperatures in Adelaide are predicted to reach 46C – toppling the record set on Thursday for the city’s hottest December day.
Sydney will see a brief relief in temperatures after hitting 45C in the far west but then soar back up to 42C on Saturday as the wall of heat hovering over Australia continues to send records tumbling.
The soaring heat could mean Friday’s national average maximum temperature is even higher than Tuesday’s record-breaking 40.7C and Wednesday’s 41.9C.
An RFS firefighter is seen at a home along the Old Hume Highway near the town of Tahmoor as the Green Wattle Creek Fire rages in the background
A property was flattened in Buxton, 150 kilometres southwest of Sydney as residents were told it was too late to leave
A swing set appeared to be the only remaining structure on a fire-ravaged Buxton property
Burnt-out cars sat in fire-ravaged bushland in Buxton as fire threatened multiple communities south-west of Sydney
Thursday’s average temperature is yet to be analysed, but could also reach record-breaking levels when its results are announced on Friday.
‘It is possible that record … may continue to be broken for the next couple of days,’ Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Kimba Wong told The Courier Mail.
Firefighters are bracing for a disastrous end to the week, with the New South Wales Southern Highlands region already reeling from the loss of at least 40 homes to the Green Wattle Creek Fire, which continues to burn out of control.
The blaze, 150km south-west of Sydney, as well as the Gospers Mountain mega fire, are both burning at an emergency warning level – while more than 100 other fires burn across the state.
But Queensland’s Fire and Emergency Service have warned they will be in no position to send in reinforcements to their southern neighbours as they too face worsening bushfire conditions in the surging heat.
A severe fire warning has been issued for the Darling Downs and Granite Belt, the Central Highlands and Coalfields for Friday and Sunday while the rest of the state remains at high and very high danger levels.
The record-breaking temperatures in South Australia could also lead to catastrophic fire conditions, the state’s fire chiefs have warned.
‘If fires break out in these conditions, they will be dangerous and fast-moving,’ the deputy chief officer of the South Australian Country Fire Service Andrew Stark told The Adelaide Advertiser.
‘They are the kind of conditions which are dangerous for our firefighters and could see properties and sometimes lives lost.
‘If we have widespread lightning, there will be more fires than our aircraft can handle.’
The potentially record-breaking day could see Melbourne tip 44C on the thermostat on Friday, while the temperature in Adelaide has been predicted to reach 46C
A truck caught ablaze as the devastating fires ripped through NSW’s southern highlands on Thursday
A tree is engulfed by flames after 45C temperatures and 100km/h winds created a perfect storm in the NSW Blue Mountains
A home is claimed by the Green Wattle Creek Fire at Buxton and NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian warned conditions on Saturday could lead to further devastation
The bushfire left behind just a smouldering wreckage of this home after striking the township of Bargo – with one resident said they were shocked the fire had reached suburbia
Nullarbor broke the record for the hottest-ever December day when it hit 49.9C on Thursday afternoon, while Ceduna on the Eyre Peninsula recorded its hottest day in more than 80 years at 48.8C.
The 48C-plus heat in Port Augusta was so extreme this week the city’s council said four of its roads were already showing ‘signs of bleeding’ as the bitumen began to melt under the searing temperatures.
The 46C forecast in Melbourne would mean the city could sweat through its hottest day since Black Saturday in 2009, when the temperature reached 46.4C.
Melbourne Yarra Trams has also advised that services will be altered on Friday to cater for the heat, given the potential for significant disruptions to services.
Emergency management commissioner Andrew Crisp asked Victorians to be bushfire ready.
‘If you leave when you see the fires, it might be too late,’ Mr Crisp said.
‘It will be a tough and challenging day for the state. We’re doing everything we can, what are you doing?’
Forty fires have been burning across Victoria this week, with more than 50,000 hectares of land scorched by four fires in Gippsland in the past month.
A front moving across Western Australia is expected to bring an end in sight to this week’s heatwave by this weekend, with the cool change arriving in NSW in time for Christmas.
Friday’s national average maximum temperature even higher than Tuesday’s record-breaking 40.7C and Wednesday’s 41.9C (pictured German tourists Julia Wasmiller (L) and Jessica Pryor pose at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair in Sydney, wearing face masks due to heavy smoke)
The 48C-plus heat in Port Augusta was so extreme this week the city’s council said four of its roads were already showing ‘signs of bleeding’ as the bitumen began to melt under the searing temperatures
A firefighter wets down the roof of a property at Tahmoor as the enormous blaze approaches
NSW RFS captain Jon Russell said he thought he was going to die as his crew were trapped in their melting fire truck by a sharp change in wind direction.
‘As I got out of the driver’s seat, they came back screaming ”Get back in the truck get back in the truck”,’ he said told The Daily Telegraph.
‘We stuck hard up against the garage because it was the only thing I could see… it was unbelievable the speed that moved at. Of all the days I have been a firefighter, today is the only day I thought it would be my last.’
Balmoral – home to about 700 people in the New South Wales Southern Highlands – and several other tiny towns were ravaged by the 149,000 hectare megafire early on Thursday afternoon.
The devastating blazes have prompted NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian to declare a state of emergency for the next seven days and urged any travellers to reassess their holiday plans.
‘As bad as conditions are today, Saturday is going to be worse,’ NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Thursday afternoon.
‘If you are told a road is closed, if you are told not to travel please take the advice, this is a state of emergency, we don’t take it lightly.
‘It’s normally a special time of the year, but we are under extreme circumstance and we just need everybody to listen to the warnings.’
Residents watched on as the out-of-control bushfire near Bargo sent thick plumes of smoke into the sky
A ball of flamed consumed this home in Buxton, which neighbours fire-ravaged Balmoral in NSW’s Southern Highlands,
Pictured: Bushfires ravage Bells Line of Road at Mt Wilson in the Blue Mountains
The Bureau of Meteorology said the worst is still yet to come with a slight relief in temperatures on Friday before an ‘exceptionally hot air mass’ blasts New South Wales on Saturday.
‘Saturday has the potential to be a very challenging day for NSW and ACT residents, with severe to extreme heatwave conditions, deteriorating air quality and gusty wind changes which will lead to dangerous fire conditions,’ meteorologist Andre Peace told The Daily Telegraph.
In Balmoral and the neighbouring town of Bargo, authorities said 20 homes have been destroyed, while another 20 were lost in Buxton.
One woman who was loading horses into a float as she fled Bargo – where at least six homes have been lost – said both her animals and residents of the town were ‘in panic mode’.
‘Property can be saved but it’s life that can,’ she told 9News.
Even more crushing for the firefighters battling to keep the bushfires under control was the fact many of them lost their own homes to the blazes.
Two major fire fronts have converged in Balmoral – which have been fanned by the winds exceeding 100 km/h
A property smoulders at Balmoral after the flames left a trail of destruction in their wake on Thursday
While conditions are expected to ease slightly overnight, Rural Fire Services (RFS) crews will be under the pump for days to come with conditions expected to hit 42C on Saturday
The sun shines through bushfire haze next to the Sydney Opera House on Thursday morning
Pictured: Plumes of smoke fill the air and linger above the Blue Mountains
‘They’re absolutely shattered – they are devastated by loss but it goes that little further when it’s your own home or the colleague you’ve got sitting on the fire truck next to you,’ NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told the Illawarra Mercury.
Adding to the headaches for fire fighters was a southerly change on Thursday which pushed the blaze towards southern Sydney suburbs including Tahmoor.
Residents in Tahmoor, Pheasants Nest, Buxton, Couridjah, Thirlmere, Bargo, Balmoral and Yanderra were told it was too late to leave.
The mayor of Wollondilly Shire Matthew Deeth said the situation was ‘as serious as it gets’.
‘Our evacuation centre at Picton Bowling Club is at capacity and our RFS volunteers are stretched incredibly thin,’ he told The Australian.
300 people were on Thursday night sheltering inside RSL clubs at Piction and nearby Mittagong.
One resident said they were shocked the fire had reached suburbia – with the collection of small towns less than 50km away from Campbelltown on Sydney’s south-western fringe.
By 7pm on Thursday evening, the state’s Rural Fire Service extended the same warning to the towns of Newnes Junction, Dargan and Clarence in the Blue Mountains.
A 56-year-old man suffering burns to his face and legs and a 28-year-old woman with burns to her face both had to be airlifted to Concord Hospital in ‘serious conditions’
A wall of smoke and fire confronts a member of the Rural Fire Service at Green Wattle in the Blue Mountains
Up to 40 homes have been lost and several firefighters rushed to hospital suffering severe burns
Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told media the fire was growing at such a rapid rate that it was currently hard to get exact details on properties lost.
‘I suspect we’re probably talking in the vicinity of dozens. What that is in terms of homes, sheds, facilities, I just simply don’t have that detail at this stage,’ he said.
‘It’s too fast and unfolding as we speak.’
‘We just do not have the capacity to send people to help at the moment,’ a Queensland Fire and Emergency Service spokesman said.
‘In fact, we may have to seek help from other states if conditions worsen in Queensland.’
Saturday is expected to bring the worst of the conditions, with 3000 firefighters already rostered on.
Conditions are also worsening at Currowan, on the NSW South Coast, where at 3pm a fire was upgraded to watch and act stage.
Balmoral, 150 kilometres south of Sydney, has been one of the worst hit towns in Thursday fires
An RFS member assesses the extent of the fire as he tries desperately to save a property in the NSW Blue Mountains
Bushland in Balmoral was smouldering by Thursday evening after the bushfire ripped through the region 150km south-west of Sydney
Earlier on Thursday, Ms Berejiklian declared a state of emergency, as temperatures in Sydney’s far west hit 45C and 39C in Sydney’s CBD.
There are concerns the Gospers Mountain fire, ravaging the northern end of the Blue Mountains National Park, could meet the Green Wattle Creek blaze to the south.
Firefighters battled in vain to stop the fire from jumping the Bells Line of Road at Berambing – which runs east to west through the national park.
‘It roared over the road, destroying power lines and cutting the various Fire Brigade resources in half stuck on either side of the fire,’ The Sydney Morning Herald reported from the scene.
The Blue Mountains train line has been closed in its outer-western stretch between Lithgow and Mount Victoria as a fire threatens the rail corridor in between the two stations at Bell.
Those in the town of Bilpin, meanwhile, are bracing for the fire to reach their homes.
During a press conference, the NSW Premier said the ‘decision to declare a state of emergency is not taken lightly.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian declared a state of emergency earlier on Thursday, ahead of what was predicted to be one of the most dangerous bushfire days in the state’s history
With dozens of properties now lost in the fire, firefighters have turned their focus to protecting humans and livestock
On a day where temperatures were forecast to hit 45C, winds in the Blue Mountains reached 100km/h
A bushfire burns along the Old Hume Highway near the town of Tahmoor, south of Sydney, on Thursday afternoon
‘You only declare states of emergency when it’s absolutely necessary and on expert advice from commissioners,’ Ms Berejiklian said.
It is the second state of emergency she has declared since the start of this year’s horror bushfire season. Six people have died and more than 800 homes have been lost.
Ms Berejiklian said they weren’t expecting conditions to be as catastrophic as they were during the previous state of emergency on November 11.
Prior to the November 11 declaration, NSW had not faced a state of emergency since October 2013.
The announcement relinquishes decision making powers from the NSW government and allows Commissioner Fitzsimmons more control over his team of firefighters.
For the next seven days during the state of emergency, he has the ability to control and coordinate the allocation of government resources, close roads and evacuate residents.
This marks just the fifth state of emergency declared since 2006.
The floods in 2012, both in Queensland and NSW, warranted an emergency warning, as did bushfires in October 2013.
Other natural disasters, including the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009, didn’t result in an emergency warning.
Pictured: The out-of-control Green Wattle Creek bushfire burning near Braddocks Rd, Werombi, on December 5
The Sydney Opera House is seen as commuters ride the Manly Ferry during a day of predicted hot weather in Sydney
The Gospers Mountain fire, burning in the Wollemi National Park area in the northern Blue Mountains, is more than 415,000 hectares in size and raging out of control
A firefighter works at the scene of the Gospers Mountain bushfire on December 15
An extreme fire danger rating has been issued for the Greater Sydney, Illawarra/Shoalhaven and Southern Ranges areas, while all other areas are rated at high, very high or severe levels. ‘Any fire that starts and takes hold will threaten lives and homes,’ NSW RFS said. Pictured: Smoke from Gospers Mountain fire
‘Conditions will be dangerous due to high temperatures, strong and gusty winds and low humidity,’ the NSW RFS said ahead of Thursday with this ‘prediction’ map