Public school students and staff fighting fires

Article and images by The NSW Department of Education

As the bushfire crisis escalated on the midnorth coast of NSW, public school students and staff put themselves in the path of danger to defend their communities.

As a firestorm bore down on Rappville in October, principal Danny Henman was convinced he wouldn’t see out the day. A volunteer with the Rural Fire Service for the past 15 years, Danny said he had never witnessed anything like the fires that devastated the area, just south of Casino, leaving two people dead and 52 homes destroyed.

“I stood in front of a firestorm to defend the pub and the house next door. We went without oxygen for three minutes as the fire created its own atmosphere and consumed all the air.”

Worried about his two other crew, the principal of Southern Cross School of Distance Education searched and found one volunteer under the building trying to get some air while fighting a fire that had taken hold on the floor. With the smoke so thick he couldn’t see; Danny followed a fire hose to locate the third crew member who had retreated to the fire truck so he could breathe.

Amid ruins, the pub they were defending had survived.

“I thought I was dead that day,” Danny said after fighting fires for 13 weeks. “I’ve seen things this fire season I’ve never seen before.”

Danny is just one of the many NSW Department of Education staff and students who have shown remarkable bravery and compassion, risking their lives to volunteer as fires swept through northern NSW.

“You don’t think about it at the time, you just do this for the community,” he said.

Public high school students Kaleb Cooper and Liam Birrer also fought fires on the mid-north coast of NSW. Liam made headlines when mainstream media reported he had missed an HSC exam to fight fires.

A volunteer with the Sancrox- Thrumster brigade for the past two years, the 18-year-old was out fighting fires threatening homes near Lake Cathie near Port Macquarie when he should have been sitting his Metal and Engineering exam.

The Hastings Secondary College's Westport Campus student said he couldn’t sit the exam knowing his Rural Fire Service crew were out on call.

“I called the school and let them know,” he told the local newspaper. “I was sitting there listening to the scanners and I just didn’t want to sit around and do nothing while those guys were out there.”