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As the six-year deadline approaches for residents to seek compensation over the Black Summer bushfires, new information emerging from NSW Parliament has raised serious concerns about transparency inside the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS).
Recent parliamentary responses confirm that the RFS has settled 13 compensation claims relating to the 2019–20 fires and that some of these payouts were for damage caused by escaped RFS backburns. Despite this, the RFS has refused to release any details, citing confidentiality agreements that prevent disclosure of which fires or communities were involved.
For Hawkesbury residents, the silence is particularly troubling.
Ten Escaped Backburns, 217 Structures Lost
Hawkesbury Fire Control was responsible for 10 escaped strategic backburn operations during Black Summer. Fires tore across the region, damaging or destroying 217 homes and other structures, burning 547,990 hectares, and devastating 70% of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. An estimated one billion animals perished.
The scale of destruction was unprecedented. Yet six years on, locals still do not know whether any of Hawkesbury’s escaped backburns are among the compensation cases already settled.
Requests from community groups, including residents who lost homes, have been met with the same answer: the RFS will not comment.
Inquiry Recommendation Still Unmet
The lack of information is made worse by the RFS’s ongoing failure to implement a key requirement of the 2020 NSW Bushfire Inquiry.
Recommendation 47(d) directed the RFS to meet with local communities affected by escaped backburns and discuss the incidents with them directly.
Despite this clear instruction, the RFS has not completed these community meetings.
Many Hawkesbury families who lost homes have never received an explanation of what happened, why their local backburn escaped, or whether any errors were made. The agency’s refusal to brief affected residents has deepened frustration and eroded trust.
Compensation Deadline Now Looming
Under NSW law, residents have six years from the date of the fires to lodge compensation claims for damage caused by negligence. That deadline is almost upon us.
Yet without transparency from the RFS, many property owners still cannot determine:
- whether their fire originated from an escaped backburn
- whether the RFS has already admitted fault in similar circumstances
- whether they may be entitled to compensation
- or whether they risk missing the deadline altogether
Several local landholders have told The Hawkesbury Gazette they were unaware compensation was even possible.
Calls for Transparency Grow
Community leaders and advocacy groups say the situation is unacceptable.
“How can people make informed decisions when the very agency responsible for these fires won’t even tell them which incidents they’ve compensated?”
“Residents deserve honesty. They deserve answers. They deserve the truth.”
With the compensation window closing, community members are urging the NSW Government to direct the RFS to release de-identified information about which incidents resulted in settlements, and to immediately fulfil its obligation to meet with affected residents under Inquiry Recommendation 47(d).
A Community Still Seeking Answers
Six years after the Black Summer fires, the physical scars across the Hawkesbury have faded but the unanswered questions remain.
For many residents, closure will not come until the RFS engages openly, transparently, and respectfully with the communities most impacted by its decisions.
Until then, uncertainty lingers, and the clock continues to tick.
