NRA Journal - Summer 2003 - National Rifle Association

just over three minutes! There were now five fire tenders,two Landrover appliances and a water bowser on site.As darkness fell the view began to resemble Dante’sInferno. The sky glowed and the flames could be seenbehind and on both sides of the range area. The firefinally reached both Cottesloe Heath and the edge ofStickledown butts and range, and both the trees inCottesloe Heath and the gorse on Stickledown burst intoflames. Two fire tenders were dispatched into CottesloeHeath but were unable to stop the fire advancing up therange.At almost exactly the same time the fire was sweepingthrough Pirbright Ranges; it was not long before theAmmunition Compound was surrounded. Additionalambulance cover was called out, again “just in case”,and the fire continued across Nelson and Langley Rangestowards Caravan Site 7. It was at this point that theorder to prepare to evacuate all caravan sites, and theCamp itself, was given, and parties of soldiers andfirefighters, co-ordinated by Doug Glaister, began goinground caravans and clubs warning of a possibleemergency evacuation if the fire swept through the treesbetween Pirbright and Bisley Camp.The whole of the bottom 200 metres of Cottesloe Heathwas blazing, as was the entire width of Stickledown. Theflames surrounded the flag poles and dwarfed the firetenders, and advanced so rapidly that the firefightershad to make a hasty withdrawal. One fire tender stalledand it was in the balance whether to abandon it or riskthe crew in getting it started. In the end it, and the crew,were saved but it was a close run thing.Such was the intensity of the fire between the two campsthat the senior fire commander withdrew all the firetenders to form a line between the two camps, thusleaving the fires in Cottesloe Heath and on Stickledownto rage unchecked. It seemed as if all the Stickledowntargets and butts and the whole of Cottesloe Heathwould be lost.The fire had, meanwhile, spread eastwards and wasthreatening Short Siberia and the Century target sheds.It was now midnight but an emergency call for staff andvolunteers produced most of the target shed staff andfour markers. With the use of a tractor they managed tomove nearly 800 targets from the target sheds out ontoCentury range floor, taking up most of the width of Butts18 and 19. This was done, incredibly, in just over onehour!The fire in Pirbright had begun to die down; at about02:00 the Fire Commander released some tenders torecommence fighting the fire in Cottesloe Heath and onStickledown. The fire in Cottesloe Heath had reached anatural fire break in the trees, and it was here that thefire crews managed to hold it and prevent it advancingfurther up the range. Due to this action the greater partof the range was saved and BSG lost no equipment atall.The fire on Stickledown was also dying down at the sametime. This was due, coincidentally, to the fact that a largearea of heather had been cut the previous week toimprove target visibility on Butts 0 and 1, and this actedas a perfect fire break. The flames only reached the buttsaccess road over a distance of about 50 yards rather than1000 yards, and never jumped the road, thus saving thefirefighters from facing flames on three sides at the sametime.By 03:00 it seemed as if the worst was over and moststaff left for a few hours rest before returning early onSaturday morning. By 08:00 there were firefighters fromthree counties on site, some of whom had been on dutyfor 16 hours and had not eaten. Sarah Bunch and herteam from the Clay Pavilion came to the rescue,producing tray after tray of hot bacon sandwiches andflasks of coffee.The Pirbright and Stickledown fires were out, with justthe odd hot spot still smoking, but the fire was nowadvancing eastwards, helped by a following wind, andwas now approaching the Century stop butts. It wasdecided to meet this threat head on, and the DivisionalCommander organised a team of firefighters to containthe fire in a line from Cottesloe Heath towards Shortand Long Siberia. This finally did defeat the main firein the immediate vicinity by about noon, almost exactly48 hours after it had started.It was unfortunate that the entire Easter Meeting and allother events that weekend had to be cancelled, but thiswas necessary since the firefighters had to have freedomof access to all areas behind the butts to deal with anynew flareups as they occurred in the freshening wind.Over 800 targets had to be moved from the butts.(Photo: Karen Robertson)54Incredibly the NRA, NSC, NCSC and BSG lost noequipment or targets at all. All staff worked togetherwith the firefighters during the period to ensure thatthe fires were fought and defeated wherever possible,and the outcome could have been so very much worse.It is unlikely that we shall have another fire for sometime to come (there’s little left to burn) and there is nowno difficulty in seeing the Stickledown targets!