The real danger of bushfires and their horrific capability to destroy lives has sadly been graphically illustrated yet again.
Eight runners in an ultra-marathon event were trapped when fire ripped through a gorge near El Questro station, in Western Australia’s remote Kimberley region. Two female competitors are fighting for their lives after suffering 80 per cent burns. Thirty-five-year-old Kate Sanderson from Victoria and 24-year-old Argyle diamond mine engineer Turia Pitt are in a critical condition in hospitals in Sydney and Melbourne.
The incident also left two men, aged 56 and 44, with major burns. One of the injured men told the ABC they had been forced to choose between becoming human fireballs or running through a wall of flame.
“We got to a situation where the flames were about two metres away from us,” he said. “It was just horrendously hot and we were scared for our lives.”
He and the three other competitors tried to run away from the blaze, but were eventually trapped by the wall of fire.
“We had a quick choice of being a human fireball and burning and that was the end, or what we did, instantaneously, is just stop and run back through the wall of flame,” he said. “We knew the flame, while it was high, we knew on the other side of it there was nothing left to burn.”
Other competitors in the three-day outback ultra-marathon then came to their aid.
Mr Hull and the other man are both in a stable condition in the Royal Perth Hospital.
The organisers of the 100-kilometre race say they will investigate how the runners came to be trapped.
Racing The Planet event organiser Samantha Fanshawe said they had been told there was no chance of a fire occurring on the course.
“”Everyone we spoke to prior to the race said there was no risk on the course to fires,” she told the ABC. “This fire flared up very suddenly.”
A terrible, terrible reminder once again then that remote Australia can be a frightening place to be. We must all remain ever vigilant and ever cautious as we venture into Outback areas … and we must have bushfire strategies in place.
