By Leonie Fuge
Four years on from the bushfires a retired military sergeant and former rural firefighter opens up about being overlooked for disaster support after serving Australia and the community for over 25 years.
Former Acting Sergeant Geoff Wrigley and his partner Pat Moses are both in their 70s and are yet to see their property re-fenced after fires tore through in 2019.
Geoff suffers from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease from firefighting with the Rural Fire Service and Pat is a cancer survivor with a knee replacement and fused ankle. Yet, whilst other Southern Downs farmers were able to access bushfire disaster assistance the couple have been left unsupported.
“We can’t repair all the fencing by ourselves, we’re nibbling away at it,” said Geoff. “I have to pace myself when I dig a fence post hole. I take ten minute breaks to catch my breath. Between the two of us, we have managed to get some fencing up.
“We might be in the 21st century but Pat and I are like the Amish living in the 19th century. We have no tractor, no machinery, everything is done by hand and on horseback.”
When fires engulfed large areas of the Southern Downs in 2019, Geoff said he and Pat had to defend their Maryvale home for 11 hours against two raging bushfires.
“We’d been rural firies for 12 years, so we understood fire behaviour and radiant heat. We live in a little hanging valley and saw the smoke breaking out from Spicers Retreat way. There was also another fire coming at us from Swanfels,” said Geoff.
“Fires normally slow coming downhill, but this one bolted down. I said to Pat, this is going to be grim.“
The couple battled the fire with homemade firefighting equipment and a 1200-litre pod of water.
“We stopped the bushfire right on our boundary and stopped it from reaching our house,” said Geoff. “The fire captain from Warwick urban couldn’t believe we put it out.”
Though the couple were able to save their home, the fires destroyed most of the back boundary of their large ‘hard country’ property.
“The fencing was split posts and they burnt like roman candles,” said Geoff.
With fences down, the retired couple lost 30 of their 40 pedigree horses.
Pat has maintained a bloodline of Quarter Horse that Geoff described as ’old school’ cutting horses he had traced back to the 1800s.
“We have guarded them so strongly because their bloodline is almost extinct, we have the last stallion in Australia.”
Two of the 40 Quarter Horses were found and returned to Pat, but Geoff said the rest are roaming Spicers Gap or have become food for wild dogs.
“Pat was devastated and there were many tears,” said Geoff.
As pensioners, Geoff said they had already been struggling to make ends meet due to the worst drought the region had ever seen. They had no resources spare and with their health conditions re-fencing was outside of their ability.
“In the drought, we were spending all our pension to feed the animals and lived like dogs, as you do, that’s life on the land. We couldn’t afford to buy fencing materials.”
The couple approached a variety of disaster funding agencies and community organisations for aid but were unsuccessful each time. Four years on much of their burnt fence lines have not been repaired.
“Once you reach a certain age you become lost in the cracks,“ said Geoff. “I don’t think federal, state or local government have got a lot of time for you once you reach retirement.”
“Personally because of my past, I don’t make a song and dance about it, I just get on and do.”
In 2022, with the region suffering extreme wet weather the couple were further impacted.
“You wouldn’t believe it, the flood came and the one bit of fence we had saved from the fires got washed away. If you don’t laugh you cry.”
This time Geoff and Pat were approved for fencing help from BlazeAid.
“BlazeAid said they could give us a hand but we had to supply everything to repair the flood damage fence. They came out and helped with one fence line out of five. They came out for three days so I fed them, you can’t fence on sandwiches. I have camp ovens so did pork chops, stewed beef and then apricot chicken the third day.“
Geoff was pleased with the standard of work from BlazeAid and said, “The fence is guitar string tight.“
Geoff recognises there are kilometres of fencing to be repaired, and some of the land is like goat tracks, but his wish is to open up his property at least another 200 acres to increase the feed for his stock and provide protection from wild brumbies.
