Thirroul’s Ian Hamilton recently retired after more than four decades on call as part of the Thirroul Fire & Rescue team.
In 1975, when Ian Hamilton started out as a retained firefighter with NSW Fire Brigade, he was issued a helmet, an axe and a spanner.
“It was just a plain white helmet that didn’t give you much protection at all. We used to carry an axe on our belt and a spanner, for undoing the old brass couplings they used to join the hoses with.”
No such luxury as radio-equipped helmets back then; communication in a fire was via whistle.
“One blow on the whistle for water on, two for water off,” Ian says. “You used to have to wrestle with a 70 millimetre hose, it was very heavy it took three fellas to pull it around.”
Ian’s first introduction to fire fighting was during the October 1968 bushfires that ravaged the Illawarra Escarpment and destroyed many homes. As a member of Thirroul Surf Life Saving Club, Ian answered a call for volunteers.
“They issued us with hessian bags and we had to go and put out spot fires at the back of houses built near the bush.
“I used to work in Wollongong, at a hardware store, the atmosphere there in the middle of the day, it was like night-time, red smoke everywhere.”
No local fire has been as bad as this one, he says. Fires do, however, seem to be more intense these days. “Look at what happened last Christmas. Greg Mullins used to be our fire brigade commissioner, he’s now a climate change activist – and he definitely says it’s all to do with the climate. He’s probably right.
“It’s been an interesting 45 years. Good fun as well as a lot of traumatic times.”
FROM CHEMICAL SPILLS TO CATS
Ian – who came up with the headline for this story – has managed to retain a healthy sense of humour over the course of a long career.
He was born in Bulli in 1944. His family – including Mary Corbett Hamilton, after whom three Thirroul streets are named – were early pioneers of the area. “My grandfather had the stagecoach that used to run from Clifton to Wollongong, he lived over in Railway Parade,
had his stables there.”
Ian joined Thirroul Fire Brigade (now Fire & Rescue) in July 1975 after the passing of respected member Jim Crompton. His first major fire was Bulli High School, not long after joining.
In the decades after, he was called to all kinds of incidents, including oil and chemical spills, car accidents, train fatalities, ship fires and harbour blazes, including when the ethanol storage tanks at Port Kembla caught alight.
He’s even attended the classic firefighter call-out: cat stuck up a tree.
“A lady called us; she was in tears because her cat wouldn’t come down, and someone said: ‘Have you ever seen a cat skeleton in a tree?’
“She didn’t see the funny side.”
Ian has also rescued several kookaburras. Once he had to empty rain from a tree hollow, using the station’s tallest ladder, then return two babies to the nest. Another time a baby kookaburra got lodged in a chimney in Austinmer and he had to take the fireplace apart. “We released the baby and as it flew back there were about a dozen kookaburras waiting for it. They all started the cheer and laugh to welcome it, that was wonderful.”
RED ALERT: STOLEN FIRE TRUCK
It’s thanks to an unsolved heist in Thirroul that NSW fire stations now have locked doors.
On 1 September 1980, about 11.30pm, Ian and his wife, Dianne, were returning from a night out when they noticed water on the road at the bottom of Bulli Pass, resembling the distinctive spillage from the brigade pumper.
“We went to the fire station to find our pumper missing and the doors open. I rang Wollongong Control to ask where the pumper had been sent, they replied saying there had been no call and the pumper should be there.
“A few days later it was found abandoned behind a disused service station in Balmain. It was the first fire truck to be stolen in NSW. After that, all fire stations in NSW had locks fitted to all doors.”
LIFE SAVING TRAINING
In 2014, Ian, along with Les Herbert, was honoured for saving the life of a friend, Ken Joy, who had a heart attack at Nelson Bay Bowling Club. MP Ryan Park told NSW Parliament: “Without the expertise and quick action of Mr Hamilton and Mr Herbert, Mr Joy would not have survived. This highlights the importance of learning CPR.”
Ian’s Fire & Rescue experience also helped him save his own life. “I worked at West Cliff Colliery for 22 years, as an underground coal miner. That fire brigade training came in very handy one time.”
A shuttle car slid off its track and hit a 1000-volt cable: “This ignited the gas coming off the coal face. It was all alight in seconds. I jumped off the machine I was driving, grabbed a fire extinguisher, and put the fire out. That was a hairy situation.”
MATESHIP WAS A HIGHLIGHT
Ian has most enjoyed the tremendous sense of mateship, the camaraderie of working as a team.
“I was a member of Thirroul Fire Brigade Demonstration competition team for many years and enjoyed the many trips away competing and meeting members from other brigades.”
A proud moment was when his son Scott turned 18 and joined Thirroul Fire Brigade, where he served for several years before moving to 210 Balgownie Brigade.
Serving beside his young son was “at times, very scary – but he was a very competent fire fighter”.
Ian says: “I remember the 1998 floods in Thirroul, we were side by side. Up around George Street and the bottom of the pass had about 2m of water over it and there was no access north or south. We were trying to help evacuate people.”
Ian’s daughter, Davina, has also served the community – she works with the SES in Wollongong. Now a grandfather of five, Ian finally hung up his firefighter hat mid 2020.
“I’m not going to miss the phone call in the middle of the night, but general mateship I’ll miss.
“A big thanks to my wife Dianne for putting up with all the middle-of-the-night fire alarms and the missed appointments due to fire calls.”