A FIRE break at Walla tip was poorly maintained before a blaze began at the dump in 2009, a NSW Supreme Court judge has heard.
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Walla resident Alan Hunter gave evidence about the fire break as part of a class action being taken against the tip’s operator Greater Hume Shire Council.
Plaintiffs taking action against the shire allege that had the tip been properly managed and had a proper fire break on December 17 2009 a blaze which ignited through spontaneous combustion at the dump would not have escaped the site.
Mr Hunter, a retired builder who used the tip fortnightly, told the court the fire break was often covered.
“It wasn’t very well maintained,” Mr Hunter said.
“I never saw when it had been graded and there was quite often...lots of small branches and large branches and leaves...scattered across it.”
Mr Hunter rejected the defence counsel’s suggestion the fire break was two grader blades wide.
He told the plantiffs’ counsel the break was an “absolute maximum of three metres, it was no wider”.
Mr Hunter, who lives four kilometres north of the tip, which is no longer open, said when he first saw dark smoke on December 17, 2009, he thought Walla’s Kotzur silo factory was alight.
“I couldn’t imagine anything else having such a mass of black smoke,” he said.
Mr Hunter helped fight the fire after attaching a fire unit to his vehicle.
Earlier Walla real estate agent Jeff Grosse told of trying to tackle the blaze.
He said he was in a fire truck inside the tip, but after 15 seconds he realised it was futile to fight the blaze there.
“We couldn’t stop the fire there, we had to go back up and come into the golf area,” Mr Grosse said.
He said the fire “raced” across the golf course, neighbouring the tip, and it jumped the Walla-Jindera Road as it headed east-south-east with a “very strong wind” blowing.
Mr Grosse and Mr Hunter were the last witnesses to give evidence before Justice Michael Walton during the case’s hearing in Wagga.
Justice Walton will inspect the tip site and a property on Thursday before hearings resume in Sydney on Monday.
The fire destroyed five homes, burned six vehicles and killed 1178 livestock.
The shire has previously told the court it "denies the risk of a fire spreading from the Walla Walla Rubbish Tip to surrounding properties and beyond was a risk which was reasonably foreseeable".