The Mount Kingiman fire tore through more than 2200 hectares of bushland to the west of Milton-Ulladulla last week.
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Rick Walker, who operates a paintball business along Woodstock Road, was one of many locals who were on the frontline as conditions turned for the worse on Wednesday, August 15.
Mr Walker, his son and his son’s mates assisted neighbours on Woodstock Road as the nasty, smoke-filled winds surged towards the coastline on Wednesday.
The group helped residents block gutters and protect properties while firefighters braced for the incoming fire to swamp the few properties under protection, Mr Walker said.
“It’s my business and everything, but at the end of the day there are houses out there that we went and sort of looked after before we came back to see how we fared,” Mr Walker said.
“We helped out there, blocked gutters and did things while the firies kept watch as it was coming up the hill from the west.”
The smoke was affecting their eyes and they could hear helicopters working in the “horrendous” wind.
“They’d drop water on an area, but it wouldn’t be too long until it was on fire again,” Mr Walker said.
After the group survived the firefront’s push across Woodstock Road, they returned to the business lot, where Mr Walker found most his infrastructure, apart from some of the fields, unburnt after Batemans Bay firefighters had protected it.
“I’ve got to get some machines and clean all this up, I’m lucky you know,” he said.
However, he said he was “devastated” for his nearby residents and his landlord’s outbuildings that had either been razed or almost destroyed.
“It’s tragic,” he said.
Spot fire suppressed
While showing The Times around his fields on Friday, Rick Walker spotted a new plume of smoke rising from the Croobyar Creek bed.
Mr Walker was concerned as he knew the land would be inaccessible by truck and immediately phoned triple zero. Carwoola fire brigade, under the guidance of captain David Hanzl, arrived shortly after.
The group followed the brigade’s captain through the creek bed and found a spot fire growing to almost 40 metres wide.
Mr Hanzl predicted the spot fire could have been burning since Wednesday at the bottom of a slope covered in “densly-packed unburnt tea-tree”.
Helicopters stopped the fire spreading before Carwoola began extinguishing the small blaze with a hose, hand-held water pumps and rakes before Mr Walker led The Times out.