Kiwi firefighters describe fighting Australian bush fires as they return home

Monday, 20 January 2020

A group of Kiwi firefighters sent to Australia to help battle the deadly bush fires are back home.

Crowds at Auckland Airport cheered and applauded as 21 firefighters and one liaison officer returned to Auckland from Sydney on Monday afternoon.

The firefighters focused on the Charleys Forest fire, east of Canberra, which covers around 65,000 hectares.

Volunteer firefighter, Kenneth Keenan from Southland, said it had been an 'exciting but hard time' working on the front line.

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Firefighters from across New Zealand were welcomed home at Auckland airport from battling Australia's bush fires with applause and cheering.

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'The terrain there was steep and dry, quite different from anything we've dealt with over here,' Keenan said.

'I've been over to Australia to help with bush fires before but this was the worst I'd ever seen, really extreme.'

It had been 'amazing' to see the way the Australian people had pulled together Keenan said, he believed the fires would continue burning for the next few months.

Keenan was feeling happy to be home and said the experience had taught him a lot.

New Zealand firefighters sent to Australia, were working 16-hour days to help control the horrific bush fires.

Erik Wardrop, a volunteer firefighter from the Nelson region said it had been a 'good feeling' to see how well crews from across Australia and New Zealand worked together.

He was heading straight back to his home in Golden Bay, near the Northern tip of the South Island.

'My journey isn't quite over yet, I have a flight to Nelson and then a two hour drive home to finish,' Wardrop said.

Since October last year, Fire and Emergency New Zealand has deployed more than 200 firefighters to Australia.

They have been deployed to both New South Wales and Queensland.

The fires have killed dozens of people and countless millions of animals, caused mass evacuations and choked cities across the Australian east coast and even in New Zealand with smoke as they burn about five million hectares of land.