WESTERN AUSTRALIAN DEPLOYMENT
RESCUING A SMALL PART OF One of the more unique calls received by a NSW RFS deployment during the cleanup of Tropical Cyclone Seroja was an urgent request that came in from the WA Government on 20 April 2021. The request was for the salvage of a historic Lone Pine Tree at Binnu Primary School in the small town of Binnu, north of Geraldton. The tree is a descendant of the pine tree in Gallipoli for which the Battle of Lone Pine in World War One is named. Its offspring in Binnu was seeded from a pinecone brought home from Gallipoli by Lance Corporal Benjamin Smith, planted in 1968 and uprooted more than 50 years later by TC Seroja. Given its historical significance to Australia and Western Australia, a multiagency effort was made to salvage the tree. Two NSW RFS members – Senior Deputy Captain Steve Caunt from Calderwood Brigade and Deputy Captain Robert Demmery from Mt Keira Brigade – were part of the team sent to salvage the tree, accompanied by SES crews from NSW and Victoria and two members of the ADF Engineering Corps. Given the ADF could not get heavy equipment to the site until the following day, the crew had to come up with a novel way to salvage the tree. Upon arriving at the site, the SES members got to work to clear fallen trees from the driveway so the crew could gain access to the property. Empty hessian sandbags were lined across the top of the tree base in the air to act as a wet wick, and all the tree foliage that was cut from the driveway was laid in under the tree base. 8
BUSH FIRE bulletin || INCIDENTS
The whole 1,400L water tank of a DFES fire truck was hosed on the wick, the foliage, the tree base and the ground where the remaining root system was still in place. A tarpaulin was then wrapped around the base of the tree to hold water in and keep the sun off.
