Every year they monitor, every year they wait and every year they pray the vacant, overgrown block across the street doesn’t end up in flames.
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That’s how Pine View Circuit residents have been living - some for as long as nine years - every time fire season rolls around.
“It only takes a child with a lighter or match and it can be gone in a hurry,” neighbour Bec Oehm said.
Her words mirrored an incident last Tuesday when children were discovered to be behind the three acre grass fire that ignited on the vacant property opposite her family home.
The block - filled with overgrown, dead grass and logs - sits amid a dense residential area between Pine View Circuit, Tate Street, Taylor Road and Dwyer Drive.
It is also located next to a heavily treed reserve.
Tuesday’s blaze came within metres of homes, but no evacuations were required.
Firefighters took it upon themselves to allow the fire - once controlled - to continue to burn, conducting an informal hazard reduction burn for safety reasons.
Bec told The Young Witness following the fire, she was “well and truly over this”.
She said she’s been living in the street since 1995 and the block has “always been an issue”.
Bec recalled a number of small fires in the past but none like last Tuesday.
“Everyone is fed up, it’s the same thing. There’s an elderly couple next door, they were out watching the fire, we all had our hoses laying on our lawns,” she said.
“It’s never mowed… the owner only mows a fire break every so often, not every year. A fire break is never going to stop it.
“We go year by year, watching it, keeping an eye on it… I ring the Rural Fire Service every year.”
Taylah Road residents, whose homes back onto the property, have been forced to mow their own fire breaks.
Another Pine View Circuit resident said the wind was blowing Tuesday’s fire in the path of their home when it first ignited.
Bec said she understood the RFS had their hands tied because it was a private block.
“We can only call when it’s deemed to be a fire hazard - it’s more hazardous for Taylor Road residents,” she said.
“I know they (RFS) do all that they can.”
Bec is calling on the owner to address the condition of his property, out of fear for her home, her family and her neighbours.
“I want him to clean it up and be more vigilant so it’s not a fire hazard,” she said.
“He may not live here but we do.”
She said all last week’s fire needed was for one of the pine trees to catch alight and fall.
“Farmers in the middle of nowhere have to keep their grass down, why is it any different in a residential area? It shouldn’t be up to the RFS.”
The owner, Rural Fire Service and Fire and Rescue NSW were contacted for this story.
Their responses are forthcoming and will be published in a later edition.
