A 'chopper' called Elvis saves lives

Elvis is alive and helping to fight raging summer fires which are now threatening Sydney suburbs. Conor Lally reports from Katoomba in the Blue Mountains overlooking the city.

After almost two weeks of raging bush fires that have now claimed nearly 200 homes, destroyed an estimated 800,000 acres of bushland and left most of the state covered in a cloud of thick smoke, the residents of New South Wales are baying for the blood of arsonists suspected of having started most of the 100 fires that have raged here since Christmas Eve.

So bad have these fires been that across the Tasman Sea in New Zealand the city of Auckland has been blanketed by thick smoke clouds for much of this week.

In NSW itself almost every major highway has been closed at least once in the past fortnight, trains have been cancelled daily and even some Sydney-bound international flights have been rerouted to other cities because of the smoke at the Olympic city's airport.

The fires have been the only talk on the streets, with newspapers, TV and radio stations carrying nothing but updates on them.

But amid the anger, the scorched earth and the razed properties this crisis has also thrown up something of an unlikely hero - a helicopter called Elvis. The chopper in question is a waterbombing "helitanker" which has criss-crossed the skies of NSW for the last 12 days like something from a Superman movie, averting crisis after crisis and saving thousands of homes, not to mention the lives of at least 14 firefighters as the countryside burned below.

Shipped to Australia from Los Angeles to fight the latest bush fires, the giant helicopter is manned by a crew of five and travels the world fighting fires from the skies.

It has a 9,000-litre water tank, giving it the capacity of a fixedwing tanker while retaining the manoeuvring capacity of a helicopter capable of travelling at up to 100 knots.

Most impressive, though, are its refilling capabilities. A snorkel-like device which hangs from its undercarriage allows it to refill from any body of water more than 45cm deep in just 45 seconds. And it can drop its load in a matter of seconds.

Elvis and its pilot, Kenny Chapman, have been credited with the fact that fewer than 200 homes have have been lost in the relentless flames and, as yet, nobody has died in these fires, the worst in Australia since the 1994 outbreaks which claimed 76 lives in Victoria and South Australia.

On Thursday Elvis's finest hour came as it struggled to save more homes in the inferno that had become the Blue Mountains region, north-east of Sydney.

At around 9.30 a.m. on Thursday, firefighter Darrell Pascoe (31) and 13 of his colleagues were busy fighting flames at Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains when disaster struck.

In scorching temperatures the winds suddenly picked up and the men became trapped between two walls of rapidly moving flames.

They fought in vain to bring the fires under control and as the indicators, sirens and wheel rims on their firetrucks began to melt they reached for their fire blankets and began wrapping themselves up tightly in preparation for the fires' final advance.

In the last moments before the flames were about to hit they sent out an SOS for aerial assistance and almost immediately Elvis was on the scene, dropping its 9,000-litre load near the men, clearing a corridor in the scrub through which they sped to safety.

Early reports had suggested the super-chopper had winched the men to safety, but while the reality had been slightly less spectacular, the 14 firefighters were in no doubt yesterday that they owe their lives to Mr Chapman and Elvis.

"Elvis saved us, absolutely," said Mr Pascoe. "You could feel the intense heat on the windows as we were driving out."

One of Mr Pascoe's colleagues, Michael Laverton, said he was terrified he was about to die in the fires.

"It was the scariest time of my career," he said.

And another, Mick Barr, said he had never witnessed anything like the heat before the water was dropped from above.

"The wind was swirling the flames, we couldn't drive out," he said.

Earlier in the week, when the flames' relentless march on Sydney finally reached the outlying city suburbs of Pennant Hills, North Epping and South Turramurra, Elvis was on hand to drop thousands of tonnes of water, again averting certain tragedy.

But the "wonder chopper", as it has been dubbed, has been unable to save everyone's day. On Thursday morning, Bronwyn Jack, from the seaside town of Sussex Inlet on the NSW south coast, faced the full extent of every Australia bush dwellers' nightmare.

Her two-storey home at 49 Lakehaven Drive was one of 20 properties devoured by the fires late on Wednesday which had forced the evacuation of more than 5,000 people to a beach nearby.

Left with little more than the clothes she was standing in - black sandals, a pair of shorts, a T-shirt and one of her husband's jumpers - she stood in the room that had once been her kitchen while the rest of her world lay in ashes around her feet.

She said that just hours before the flames came she telephoned her husband and two children, on holiday in Tasmania, to warn them that the flames were licking back doors on their sleepy street.

"I took what I could and got some photos and a pair of trousers and went at the last minute. I have to keep busy now, there's too much to think about otherwise."

But with the pain of her loss there was anger too. She said she had repeatedly asked the authorities to clear the area of scrub around her home in case the fires reached the property.

"They just wouldn't listen. But if the land had been cleared I don't think this would have happened".

Her neighbours were just glad to have escaped with their lives.

"There was only one thing that I wanted to save and I've got him," said Rose Lucna, pointing to her husband Ray.

Another Sussex Inlet resident, John Bowman, found it harder to find the silver lining. He said that in 10 minutes of fire he had lost everything he has ever dreamed of and worked for.

"You talk about a dream, this kind of dream is not realised in 10 minutes, it's just total devastation," he said. "This is my business, my home, everything, just gone."

NSW Premier Bob Carr has promised to bring to justice the arsonists who are believed to have started at least half of the 100 fires that have raged since Christmas Eve, and the police have already questioned more than 20 suspects.

Two more Elvis choppers were on their way from the US but yesterday came news that two the helitankers may be late arriving because the plane on which they are to be flown is snowed in at Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport.

The two craft, similar to Elvis, were due to arrive early on Monday but may now be delayed until midweek.

And even if they do arrive on time and take to the skies immediately the crisis looks set to run well into a third week and possibly even longer.

Their arrival will be of little comfort to the people of Sussex Inlet and with no break in the weather expected over the weekend this Black Christmas seems far from over.