Fire on the Scarp

James Camplin has been a Volunteer Bushfire Fighter for nearly thirty years and is still involved in active fire fighting although it is a task he prefers to delegate to younger Brigade members, being more involved in fire fighter training these days. He has held the position of Chief in the past and knows full well the pressures the position brings.

He was born in Portsmouth UK and moved to Western Australia with his family in 1970 and was involved in dairy farming for many years in the South West of the State.

Fire on the Scarp is his second novel and brings together much of the experience he has gathered over the years fighting fires. Writing has been a hobby of his for many of those years and together with photography, another hobby, has seen the production of a number of newspaper and magazine articles that had to eventually produce a book of some sort.

He lives in country Western Australia with his wife Carol and his two grown sons with their families live within easy visiting distance.

DEDICATION

This story is dedicated not only to all the 25,000 Volunteer Bushfire Fighters in Western Australia but to all emergency service volunteers who freely give their time in serving their community sometimes without recognition. Without your dedication the world would be a poorer place.

I also dedicate this to my wife Carol who has encouraged my efforts in writing this with patience and good humour.

DISCLAIMER

The places and characters in this novel are solely the invention of my imagination and were never intended to depict any actual person living or dead. Organisations mentioned are representations of existing organisations that fulfil the same role in real life but are included to provide accuracy to the background of the story, again persons in the roles within those organisations are a figment of my imagination and do not depict actual people that fill those roles.

James N. Camplin

Fire on the Scarp

Copyright © James N. Camplin (2017)

The right of James N. Camplin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781786930330 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781786930347 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781786930354 (E-Book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2017)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

CHAPTER 1

The fire was not very fierce, at least not as fierce as many he had seen. Half metre high flames wandering through a mown paddock that was hardly dry. Jeff Parsons was the Jarrup Fire Chief and he had got to the fire first because it was not far from where he lived and worked. He was waiting for the fire trucks to arrive as he assessed the scene coolly and calmly with an experienced eye. There was only a gentle afternoon breeze pushing it. A hay baler had caught fire and had dropped burning hay on the ground for several metres before the farmer had spotted it and stopped. The baler was burning sullenly but the farmer had rescued his tractor. The fire was spreading along the ground setting fire to baled and unbaled hay. There was no sign of the farmer but he was sure he would be back shortly.

He reached for his radio microphone as he saw the flashing lights of the first fire unit coming up the road towards him, waiting to see who it was before giving his orders. His radio crackled into life.

Wisley Station, Wisley two four arrived.

Wisley two four Wisley Station roger, report to the Chief, out.

Jeff waited a couple of seconds to see if there was anything else to be said then pressed his microphone button.

Wisley two four, access is through the gate by my Land Cruiser.

Roger.

The truck came down through the gears in plenty of time and turned into the gateway by the Land Cruiser, stopping by the Chief. He stood up on the footplate and stuck his head through the window to talk to the crew leader. There were three of them in the cab; all experienced fire fighters, all from his brigade, so he addressed them collectively.

Good afternoon gentlemen, a lovely day for it. Got your tee card?

They all grinned while the crew leader handed over the T shaped card with their names and brigade on it, colour coded for the type of unit they were driving, with the names of all the crew written on it and their arrival time. They waited for his orders.

If you could start from here and take the right flank, it’s not doing much but we do need to slow it up as quickly as possible before it destroys any more hay. I will send the next one down the left flank. The baler is a write off it can wait.

He hopped off and waved them away just as the next truck arrived followed by a light tanker. He climbed up on the second truck repeating the instructions, collecting their card and sending them off down the left flank of the fire. The light tanker was held in reserve for a few minutes while he answered the radio again.

Jarrup Chief receiving.

Jarrup Chief this is Wisley station, do you need any more units out there? Jarrup Deputy says his three four is available if you need it.

He looked out across the fire ground; the first truck was nearly at the head of the fire with the other working quickly up the other flank. They would have it out in a matter of minutes.

Who else is on the way? Over.

Just our Light Tanker, over.

That will do I think, running fire is just about out. There is just mop up to do, over.

Roger I’ll tell him, out.

He called the light tanker crew over and got them to start hosing down the baler just as the second light tanker appeared, closely followed by the farmer on his rescued tractor, towing a big set of disc harrows. He told the Wisley light tanker crew to wait inside the gate while he spoke to the farmer.

Hi George what happened, blow a bearing?

Yeah – heap of shit, I thought I could smell burning a few minutes earlier but I had the air con on.

It looks like the boys have got it stopped so if you can run a double cut around the fire, just off the edge that will secure it I think. This lot will go with you in case anything flares up. He waved over the Wisley light tanker crew.

Go with him; keep back a bit so you can see if he stirs anything up, if he does put it out.

They left following behind the tractor just as the radio called again.

Jarrup Chief – Wisley two four.

Receiving.

We are out of water, where do you want us to fill up?

Have you got your portable pump on board?

Sure have.

There is a dam on the South-Western end of this paddock, set it up there.

Roger that, out.

‘And that will be that,’ he thought as the smoke and steam from the baler seemed to be the only action left on the fire ground, that and the smoke rising from the burning bales. The farmer had a paddock full of big round bales and had been baling a patch next to them with small square bales. The round baler would be safely back in the shed, the little old square baler had probably just come out to do a couple of hundred of the little bales for the calves, as it did every year. Most of the crop was saved thanks to the farmer calling the brigade early enough, good old cell phones.

The Wisley two four, so named because it held two thousand litres of water and was four wheel drive, was heading towards the dam. George the farmer was vigorously making a fire break around the fire and the Barnsley light tanker – had just run out of water.

‘God they’re hopeless,’ he thought. ‘Only a committee would put six hundred litres of water on a Land Cruiser cab chassis and call it a tanker, they should be called light buckets; they always ran out of water too quickly.’

Jarrup Chief, Barnsley light tanker, we are out of water.

Wisley two four is setting up a pump on the dam in the south west corner, go there.

Roger, out.

He got back into the Land Cruiser and drove it inside the gate to get off the road, switched off the motor and watched. It was the last week in October, the hay season was in full swing in this part of Western Australia, an hour or so south of Perth, and a pleasant twenty-eight degrees on a bright sunny spring day. He was joined a few moments later by the Police van from Jarrup which pulled up in front of him. Constable Jim Nicholson got out and wandered back to the Chief.

Hi Jeff, all under control?

Gudday Jim, yeah just starting mop up.

How did it start? Mechanical fault?

Yes looks like it, probably a bearing on the packing arm; they are the usual ones to go.

It covered a bit of ground didn’t it, the countryside is starting to dry up, Jim mused.

Jeff knew that there would soon be a spate of these little fires as people started to get rid of their winter rubbish and failed to take the right precautions. They were nearly into permit season now so soon, land owners would be knocking on his door looking for a permit to burn. Then there would probably be the odd camp fire getaway during the Christmas holidays and hopefully after that it should quieten down. The only danger then was cigarette butts and perhaps a summer lightning storm or, God forbid, an arsonist.

Jeff had seen it all before, he had been a fire fighter for over twenty years and probably would be for another twenty. He was after all only forty-five.

Jim wandered over to look at the baler while Jeff absently patted his pockets for a cigarette, and then remembered that he had given them up. He was looking in his kit bag for chewing gum when he spotted the Fire Diary he was supposed to be filling in. Guiltily he pulled it out and opened it to an empty page, of which there were many, and then with pen poised his mind went blank.

He was saved from any further writers block by the arrival of the tractor and the Wisley light tanker. Thankfully he got out to talk to the crew and the farmer.

There’s a good double cut right around it Jeff, should do the job.

Good one George. Tell me do you have a tractor with a front-end loader?

Yes sure, what do you want it for?

Some of those burning rolls are a bit close to the edge, they need pushing in a bit so they can burn out safely.

It was a waste of time trying to put out hay rolls; it took far too much water and effort. The best solution was to let them burn out and break them up so they burned up quickly. Once the roll was even partially burned the cattle would not eat it.

No problems, I’ll be back in ten minutes. He hurried back to the tractor and left.

Jim Nicholson came back.

I’ll leave you to it, see you later. He climbed back into the van and returned towards Jarrup. The radio in Jeff’s Land Cruiser crackled again.

Jarrup Chief, Barnsley three four, out of water, going to fill up.

Roger.

He went over to the Wisley light tanker. The crew of two was made up of one of the newest members of the brigade, a university student called Rob and Tina, the brigade secretary, quiet, efficient and no longer married. She was the senior fire fighter of the two so she was the crew leader.

Can you patrol quietly around the fire and watch it until one of those big units gets back, don’t use any water except in an emergency and sing out if you need help. When they get back you can come back here.

She gave him a smile and they drove off.

Barnsley light tanker back on the fire ground, where do you want us?

Come back here and finish what you were doing. The baler was still smouldering, giving off smoke. He wandered over to get a closer look at it as the light tanker came back.

Have you been you been using foam on this?

No not exactly.

Why not?

We sort of forgot.

Use foam, you’ll get it out a lot quicker. So saying he turned their foam dispenser full on, opened their recirculation valve and recirculated the water through the pump back into the tank, drawing foam concentrate into the tank. He only ran it for twenty seconds or so before turning the foam off and closing the recirculation valve down to just a crack. They looked sheepish and started to hose down the baler again. Satisfied when he saw the foam bubbles forming, he went back to his Land Cruiser.

The blank page in the Fire Diary looked accusingly at him. He fished out his mobile phone and found the message box, found the pager message from the Communications Centre and wrote down the incident number and time of the message at the top of the page. Then he bundled the tee cards he had collected into the diary, it was a start. He was supposed to catalogue his decisions and the reasons for them in the diary, but a fire went too quickly to make time for writing. Usually he was answering the phone and radio at the same time, especially when everybody was trying to get to the fire and wanted information. That reminded him that he had to tell the Communications Centre that all was well, so he found their contact number in his contacts box, tapped the green phone icon that rang them and filled them in. From the officious voice on the other end he need not have bothered, but he knew if he didn’t, somebody up there would complain and there would be a please explain come back down the line.

They left an hour later with the burning bales pushed away from the edge, broken up, burned out and extinguished, and the first twenty metres from the edge blacked out. By then the sun was setting and the crews were glad to head for home. Jeff turned into his own home, behind the little service station on the highway at Wisley that he owned. The place was in darkness which was not unusual since his wife Esme had decided they needed to separate for a bit until they sorted out their lives and had walked out on him. As far as he was concerned, his life was fine but she had moved out anyway.

His workshop and the shop were locked up and the keys were as usual on the mat inside the front door of the house, dropped through the letter box by his well-trained staff, who were used to locking up during the fire season when he got called out. He only had two staff, an apprentice mechanic who was in his forties and not really an apprentice, and a woman who worked part time and ran the shop for him, selling petrol and diesel whenever anybody was silly enough to buy it at his prices, making up his bills and keeping the books. It was a job Esme used to do until she decided that it was beneath her talents, and became personal assistant to the owner of a large construction company in Jarrup instead.

There was a big, modern fuel company owned roadhouse situated a kilometre up the road from Jeff, that sold discount fuel, and he had no intention of competing with them. But he had what they didn’t have and that was a work shop and spare parts and he made a comfortable living out of servicing and repairs. He would never be rich, but he didn’t really care, he was happy doing what he did despite his wife urging him to do better.

He stripped off his fire uniform down to his normal working gear in summer, of shirt and shorts. He grabbed a beer out of the fridge in the house and went back outside to the workshop and let himself in. He turned the lights on and looked to see what was left to do. There were two vehicles in the service bay. One was a Ford Courier Ute with a blown head, which was waiting for parts due from Perth on Monday.

The other vehicle was the one he was working on when the fire call came. He was replacing the rear brake pads and only had to hone out one drum, the other was done. He set it up on the lathe and got to work. An hour later he was finished, everything reassembled and the vehicle ready to go home. It was too late to arrange that now so he locked up and went back into the house. He heated a meat pie in the microwave for his tea and ate it with his second beer.

He hated to admit it but it was much more peaceful at home since she had left. Esme was sharing a unit in town with one of her girlfriends so that she could be closer to work and the odd social occasion that work entailed, as the personal secretary to a successful businessman who was also a widower. There had been a great deal of conflict for a couple of years as she tried to get him to improve himself, sell the garage and accept an offer to run the workshop for the construction company she worked for.

For instance, a fire like the one today would have brought a few scathing comments if she had got home and he was out, especially if he was supposed to have been at one of her functions and hadn’t turned up. That had happened more than once before, particularly when he took over as Chief and was the cause of several rows.

He wasn’t sure whether it was her hormones at work or what. Everybody seemed to be talking about the change of life and the onset of menopause and its effect on personalities. He had not really bothered to find out much about it but she had certainly changed a lot in the last couple of years. Her hair was now short and styled, subtly dyed with blonde highlights. She tended to dress in tailored skirts and jackets for work and went out after work far more often. Her gentle jibes at his dedication to the Fire Brigade had become far more pointed, even vicious. She had tried harder to change him but of course he resented it,