Saturday the 3rd of November, Halfway Creek assembled a crew of 3 (including our newest member, Matt Wholston) to take out the 7 to a few fires near Mt Belmore state forest. As mentioned before the Halfway Creek 7 has been used by fire crews from Sydney, who unfortunately forgot to switch off the foam unit. This meant that after topping up the water tank, a lot of foam was formed inside the water tank, which is not a desired situation. Anyway back to the 3 fires which were burning out of control, and supposingly were lit on purpose. A helicopter surveying the area, spotted the probable perpetrator, and followed for half an hour until it was lost in the dense bush vegetation. Its very unfortunate these things are still happening. The strike team assembled at the bus station in South Grafton, where Grafton 9, Minnie Water 9 and Coutts Crossing 7 joined to make the trip to Mt Pickabooba. After about a 1.5 hour drive we arrived  at staging area where a second bulldozer (D6) arrived to be deployed. Fine Flower 7 & 9, Baryulgil 7 and Trenayr 7 were already on the scene they were relieved later on in the day. Several back burns were started in an attempt to get control over the fires. It was a long and successful day but more work was needed so several other crews would to be deployed the next day.

At about 8 am Halfway Creek brigade’s Cat 1 attended a truck accident on the highway about 1 km south of Grays Road. The truck’s fuel tank had dislodged and about 100 litres of diesel had spilled on to the road side. NSW Fire & Rescue’s Hazmat trucks from Woolgoolga and Grafton were in attendance and we provided protection for their crews will the remaining diesel was pumped from the damaged tank. Lanitza 1 arrived shortly after us to assist. After cleaning up any residue we returned to the station around 10am.

As our Cat 7 was on loan to crews from out of area (Sydney) assisting with the current section 44, when we were called to assist with the large fire across the river from Nymboida we had to respond with our Cat 1. The Cat 1 is not the ideal unit for bushfires; it’s bigger, less manoeuvrable and considerably higher off the ground, so by the end of the day we were all buggered climbing in and out of it many times during the day. Fortunately the track we were burning back from was OK for the 1 it was just hard on the crew – Tony, Kevin, Laura and a new recruit Ken. Together with Nymboida 9, Lanitza 7 & Brooms Head 1 under the leadership of Group 5 (Neville Anderson), we burnt and blacked out about 5 kms of firebreak to enclose the north eastern and eastern edge of the fire. A couple of times the fire jumped our break so we had a fair bit of mopping up to do and falling trees including one that closed the track for a bit were also a problem. We were stood down about 4pm as the next section was unsuitable for the bigger trucks and a strike team from Richmond Valley were due next day to carry on.

Halfway Creek 7 with a crew of 3 was asked to assist with a big fire near Coaldale north of Grafton. We arrived at the meeting point with Brooms Head, Trenayr and Gulmarrad 7's. After a short while we drove in and were briefed by the Group Leader Robby Graham from Far North Coast RFS. There were at least five FNC brigades and four Clarence Valley brigades there together with a D7 bulldozer. We were given the job of blacking out the eastern edge of a prior burn for about 2.5kms. After this we had a quick cuppa and then we back-burnt and blacked out to the top of the rather steep mountain. This was accomplished by early evening but we continued to patrol and put out many stumps and trees, until a halt was called around 9:30pm when we were given a sandwich and sent home. One of the 7's was bogged for a short time on the way out but soon we were all away. Got back to station about 10:30pm. A long afternoon but a job well done.