Disobedience could have saved homes: firefighter
A volunteer firefighter from New South Wales says he considered disobeying
orders which he believes stopped him from saving homes in Canberra.
Senior Deputy Captain of the Cunningar brigade Peter Holding says 25 crew
and five tankers from the Harden area were called to Canberra early
Saturday afternoon.
He says on arrival at 5:00pm AEDT they were directed to eat, then travel to
a fire which was already under control and then they were told to rest.
Mr Holding has questioned why his group was sent to a burnt area when the
tankers could have been used to save houses.
"I asked myself all night shall we just disobey orders and go and put the
fire out now, if everybody does that you end up with the obvious complete
mess, you can't afford to do that so you do what you're told but at the end
of the day you've got to start asking questions whether what we were told
was logical or not," he said.
http://abc.net.au/news/justin/nat/newsnat-20jan2003-54.htm
