A Blue Mountains fire brigade captain has told a New South Wales coronial inquest into the Black Summer bushfires that locals were not given "meaningful input" into the Gospers Mountain back-burning operation that eventually destroyed 100 homes.
Elizabeth Raines, a National Parks and Wildlife Service employee and captain of the Mount Wilson and Mount Irvine Rural Fire Service (RFS) Brigade, was tasked with managing the burn along Mount Wilson Road on December 14, 2019.
Ms Raines told State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan she learnt of the strategy, which aimed to contain the southern flank of the Gospers Mountain "mega-blaze", during a teleconference with the RFS Incident Management Team (IMT) the afternoon prior.
"At the end of that teleconference, did you consider that all participants were given the opportunity to raise any concerns about the back-burn?" counsel assisting Jonathan Wilcox asked her.
"I felt decisions had already been made before that teleconference took place," Ms Raines replied.
"We were told what to do rather than having meaningful input into how that back-burn be conducted."
Earlier this week, RFS divisional commander James Carter defended the team's decision to continue with the back-burn, which broke containment lines in the hours after it was lit.
Mr Carter told the inquest the strategy was a "strongly vocalised preferred option by every stakeholder" on the call.
"We were aware that we needed everybody to be on the same page in order to make the strategy work," Mr Carter said.
But Ms Raines denied a consensus had been reached.
"We accepted that the plan had to be done, but I don't believe we were really given a choice about undertaking it," she said.
"It was a foregone conclusion."
No 'robust discussions'
Ms Raines said there had been "a clearly established plan" earlier in the month to wait until the fire reached certain trigger points before any back-burns were considered.
She told the court she and her brother Peter, a senior deputy at her brigade, had become concerned when the plan was changed with little notice.
Ms Raines said she asked during the meeting whether the ignition point of the burn could be moved from the intersection of Mount Wilson Road and the Bells Line of Road, up on to Mount Wilson.
"I expressed concerns about the potential for [the fire] to jump Mount Wilson Road into the Bowens Creek area," she said.
"Once it was in there, as far as I was concerned, it would be uncontrollable."
When questioned about whether rainfall in the previous days would have made her proposal less effective, Ms Raines denied the suggestion.
"Mount Irvine had had more rain than what Mount Wilson had — we'd had very little," she said.
"It would not have hampered a back-burn at all."
Ms Raines said she felt the burn organised by the IMT started unnecessarily early and in an unfavourable location compared to other options.
"From our point of view, we weren't consulted … we weren't able to have robust discussions about the start point of that at back-burn."
The inquest continues.
