Volunteer firefighters have vowed to oppose any push to create a single fire service in NSW as the emergency services minister savaged the union representing professional firefighters as "bastards".
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Recriminations are continuing in the aftermath of the devastating Tathra fire that destroyed almost 100 homes, cabins and caravans on the NSW south coast.
The Fire Brigade Employees Union on Tuesday said an "ongoing turf war" between the professional Fire & Rescue NSW and the volunteer-based Rural Fire Service contributed to the losses in Sunday's blaze.
The RFS rejects that claim, saying the help offered was an urban pumper that couldn't have accessed hilly terrain.
And FRNSW also says the RFS made the right decision to decline the offer.
"We agree the response was appropriate given the fire location, the type of vehicles available and the information available at the time," FRNSW commissioner Paul Baxter and RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said In a joint statement on Wednesday.
"Claims to the contrary are disappointing and poorly timed given the firefighting operation is continuing and the community has been affected deeply."
But they said where there were lessons to be learnt, the two agencies would work together to identify them.
NSW Emergency Services Minister Troy Grant says the union is pointing fingers based on "part-truths and part-information".
"I am disgusted by this union bastardry that has occurred at a time when people are distressed and suffering," Mr Grant told reporters in Parkes on Wednesday.
The RFS waited three hours to call for FRNSW help as the bushfire raced toward Tathra despite Fire & Rescue offering assistance more than once.
The union says competition between the two fire services "is dysfunctional and dangerous".
But Mr Grant says management is working well together and the union is just stirring the pot before internal elections.
Mr Grant has asked former Australian Federal Police boss Mick Keelty to head an inquiry into the call-taking and dispatch arrangements of both services "so these questions will never get asked again".
The inquiry, the minister said, was needed to ensure firefighting assets were best deployed to protect life and property.
"What is the best model to make sure that (capable) fire appliances are deployed - no matter what badging is on the side of them - to any fire without boundaries being an issue," he said, adding a consolidated "call centre" could be the answer.
The union is open to merging the two services but volunteers insist they'll fight any such push.
"The formation of a single agency would erode volunteer culture and commitment thereby jeopardising property protection throughout NSW," Rural Fire Service Association president Ken Middleton said in a statement on Wednesday.
"Under existing co-operative firefighting arrangements there are clearly stated protocols in place for response to incidents within the urban-rural interface."
In 1996 former deputy coroner John Hiatt recommended the services be merged following an inquiry into the 1994 bushfires that devastated parts of Sydney and eastern NSW.
A bitter dispute between paid firefighters and rural CFA volunteers has been raging for years in Victoria.
It's seen a minister lose her job, CFA bosses and then the board sacked, countless court cases and federal government intervention.
A Labor plan to split paid members from the rest of the CFA has now stalled in the Victorian upper house.
Australian Associated Press
