Claire Deane shines on

In a quiet suburban street in Sydney, Australia something inspiring is happening. A piece of degraded municipal land is being regenerated to its natural condition by a small group of volunteers. They do this because they are dedicated to continuing the work of Claire Deane, who died before she could complete it herself. And because Claire’s vision encompassed enduring values of respect and the oneness of things.

The land being regenerated has been formally dedicated as the Claire Deane Bush Sanctuary. In June 2000, Claire died shortly before her twenty-sixth birthday, when she and six National Parks & Wildlife Service colleagues were trapped in a routine hazard reduction burn in northern Sydney that went terribly wrong. It was her second day working as a firefighter, though she always considered herself a bush regenerator. Three times a year, the volunteers meet in the suburb of Forestville to remember her short but inspiring life and ensure her personal project continues.

The project co-ordinator, Noelene Hutchinson, knew the Deane family well through other conservation projects, before Claire joined NPWS. "Claire's parents, Carol and Trevor, were planning to move north and we were all worried her project might stall. I knew a few people so I suggested we set up a memorial group to keep it as she would have wanted", said Noelene.

The group centres on Claire's family, friends and colleagues, with equipment provided by NPWS and the local Warringah Council. "The land is a 'sanctuary' in name only because it's too small to be an official one. But the name seemed more special than 'park' or 'reserve' and the Council agreed after consulting with neighbours. They were all delighted because they'd known Claire and her family for years". Noelene speaks warmly, too, of the support from Lyn McDougal of Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens and the Council's Jim Casimir. As regular meeting days, the group has chosen the last Sundays in October and March, and a Sunday in June near the time of Claire's death.

There’s something about Claire Deane that continues to inspire those who knew her. Listening to them, a remarkable impression begins to build and there's an unspoken understanding that her personal presence is still real for them. They slip easily into the present tense. "She's extremely vibrant and environmentally conscious. Her whole life’s been about putting the utmost into whatever she felt she could do", Noelene says. "She's a person you just can't help but like".

Mel Hall, the Northern Beaches Bush Regeneration Co-ordinator with NPWS, remembers that when the accident happened her first concern was keeping the rest of her workmates together to preserve the close feeling among NPWS personnel. "Noelene, Carol, Trevor and I talked about a way to do something for Claire. The aim of it all is to continue what she was doing. Sure, it's my job, it's what I'm here to do. But you can't treat this as only a job - I mean, it's more than a bit personal, too. Everybody has a really deep feeling that we need to keep something happening here. To give Claire's life meaning".

These tributes from friends are impressive enough. But talking to Carol and Trevor, and Claire's former partner Nathan Fitzgerald , a picture emerges of a woman of extraordinary generosity of spirit. Her early maturity, they say, was way beyond her years. They hold nothing back. They like to talk about her, they say, and delight in recollections of the child who looked for ways to help with household jobs. "Even as a small girl", says Trevor, "you always knew Claire would get things done properly".

She wanted to see people enjoy themselves, says Nathan, and make sure those around her felt good about themselves. "She was always more interested in giving than receiving. Everyone admired her for that. I've known her for seven or eight years and I've seen, in that time, how everyone just loved having her amongst them".

For Carol, the mother and daughter relationship contained a special friendship and Carol saw issues in her daughter's life that didn't always show on the surface. "She gave so much she didn't always look after her own inner self. But she couldn't help it. Later in her life I think it became a dilemma to have to think of herself but I never, ever saw this displayed". It’s a family that values personal growth and self awareness and Trevor says his daughter's ideals were the same. "Integrity was very important to her. She would try to understand everyone she met, try to work with them rather than against them”.

Claire’s childhood pastimes centered on reading and music, and especially classical music. She excelled at the piano, passing 7th grade, and enjoyed contemporary music. Other pleasures included photography and scouting, where she achieved a 'Queen's Scout' Award with the Venturer Scouts. Trevor and Carol liked the silly side of their daughter's personality, too, recalling jelly wrestling on her 18th birthday. "She didn't have many inhibitions, really, did she? Her great interests were people, reading and acquiring knowledge. She read constantly – novels like Jean Auel's Valley of Horses. And by eight she'd read every Sherlock Holmes story. Later on, her feeling for conservation took her towards books about nature and the environment".

Despite the terrible loss, Claire’s death has given the Deane family a sense of richness. "In this way, it's had a much bigger effect on me than on others", says Trevor, "because I was not spiritually minded before. Now I strongly believe there has to be some spiritual existence. I can't bear to think there's nothing else and that we won't be with Claire again”. They never set out on a religious quest, Carol emphasises. But she and Claire came later to see a religious aspect to their meditation, without the hierarchies and directiveness they saw as typifying many religions. "For Claire and me, and for us now, it's about knowing God is within you and you are responsible for your own life and your actions to others, rather than being externally accountable to others in a 'church'. You take what you're ready for, at any stage, I think".

With Claire, Carol says she discovered that to love others you have to love yourself. "That's hard because there are social pressures against being 'selfish'. But it's only in loving yourself that you can fully give it to others". Carol has continued with her meditation despite the shattered routines that followed Claire’s death and Nathan, too, is trying to build on the way she enhanced his life. "I guess I'm a more caring person for having known her. I take people for who they are. I never gave like she did but I was learning. To me, she's always here".


On the sanctuary’s Dedication Day on June 3rd 2001, Carol and Trevor stood together in Coolabah Crescent and thanked those who had come to support Claire's project, inviting them to their home during the difficult time of the Coronial Inquest. "It means a great deal to us to have this reserve as a permanent memory of our dear Claire, and to see so many others here helping us", they told the volunteers.

Whilst celebrating her memory, Trevor and Carol are careful not to put their absent daughter on a pedestal. "All our children are special. Our eldest is our daughter Wynne, who lives in North Queensland. Then came Claire and the youngest is our son Keith, in Sydney. And of course we love each of them deeply. I'm sure Wynne and Keith wouldn't mind us saying, though, that Claire had some quite special gifts", says Carol.

It's said there is almost nothing worse than losing a child. How has this family survived such a profound tragedy? "I think first and foremost we've been able to find a gratitude that we've shared almost twenty-six years of her life", says Carol. She acknowledges, too, the support from family, friends and neighbours. "It got us over the utter disbelief and despair, and the terrible first few months. And it's still continuing".

It's been easier for them than for Nathan, say Carol and Trevor, because they have each other and have consciously focused on the twenty-five years of their daughter's life. But they understand that Nathan's life was coupled with Claire's and dwelling on the past doesn't necessarily help him deal with the future. Trevor says, for now, they're just clinging to what she was and what she achieved, and hanging on tightly to their spiritual belief. It sounds a little frightening, the way he describes it. "But the more we can do this, the more we can cope. We know she'd want us to have some purpose in our lives. It took time to get into this space, you don't climb out of the black hole quickly. It may not finish with the Inquest, but it'll be easier with that behind us".

Trevor and Carol hoped at the time that the Coronial Inquest would unlock doors in their lives but it also created huge personal challenges. They were clear about their expectations. They wanted to understand why Claire and her colleagues had to die, or be so terribly burnt, and then they wanted an outcome that would benefit everyone involved and consolidate the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

"We have a very strong belief in the Service. We want it to succeed because its work is so valuable – it's important for the future of this nation and the earth. Of course, there could be a negative side. If the Inquest doesn't achieve those aims, carrying on afterwards will be harder for us, so there's a risk, too". Honesty and truthfulness in the Inquest, no matter how painful, would give them the best chance of healing, Trevor believed.

At the Inquest’s conclusion, the Coroner noted that no Inquest can apportion blame to any person after a death or a fire. Rather, the Coroner’s role is to identify causes, so that remedial action to prevent recurrence can be taken. The Coroner made a total of fourteen recommendations to the responsible Minister for changes to controls over hazard reduction and prescribed burns.

The degree of healing for the family, though, has not so far been as complete as they’d hoped for. After the Inquest the Workcover Authority confirmed it would start an Occupational Health and Safety Issues action against NPWS in the Industrial Relations Court and NPWS later advised they would plead guilty. As parents "a general institutional responsibility as accepted by NPWS falls a little short of what we feel is needed", Trevor says. "We are not wanting to see individuals punished. Yet perhaps naively we had hoped for all those involved to find the strength to tell only and all of the truth, as without it it’s hard to attain a real belief that this couldn’t happen again. Understanding fully why a problem has occurred is the first step to preventing its recurrence, and that requires the truth to be exposed." Regrettably, said Trevor, the outcome of the Inquest did not include the reason why the crew ran uphill immediately before the entrapment. He says his personal research has since clarified for him that details did not fully come to light in the Inquest and he believes these could assist in providing answers to this vexing problem.

What are the family's memories of their daughter? "Hundreds, of course", Trevor says, as any father would. "She was always smiling - there's so much in that smile. But what stays in my memory, and what I'm so thankful for, is the morning of her last day. I was having breakfast and Claire came to tell me she was off to work. I stood up and she came and gave me a kiss and that's the memory I'll cling to forever. She'd do that whenever we parted but it was as if she somehow knew that this would be her last day. I remember it seemed extremely important that we said a happy goodbye that morning".

Nathan talks of how well Claire understood him, remembering their trip to a favourite place in the Barrington Tops mountain range, where he'd planned to propose to her. The location turned out not to be quite so perfect and he'd felt cross with himself. "At dinner, I decided this was the right time anyway, and she said she'd known all day what was on my mind".

"The hug the night before she died ..." is Carol's memory "... and the day at Christmas 1999 when Claire showed us a Powerful Owl she'd discovered and then took us up to Barrenjoey Headland to one of her own special dream places. The whole day was magic".

They scattered her ashes at her Barrenjoey dream place.


Now there is a permanent memorial to this vibrant young life. The sanctuary will take some years to fully regenerate and its upkeep will be ongoing. "We're restoring the precise local flora and bringing in boronias and low flowering native shrubs, which died out when the bush was degraded in the early 60s", says Noelene.

"It was originally planned as a children's park but it was too steep, so it just sat there. Now, it's going to be a haven and a reminder of Claire". Regeneration will move progressively down the escarpment from the top sections near the road, to where the land widens out near Garigal National Park. Eventually, it will be a study area for indigenous species. "The response has exceeded all my expectations", Noelene says. "We're already years ahead of schedule".

Claire Deane shines on. Her loved ones speak of a person they saw as an example, perhaps, for our time - a natural mediator, willing to value differences without moral judgment. Her mother and father are proud of the way her short life sends out ripples people respond to. It explains why many who never met Claire still feel their lives have been touched.

"Such a wise head on a young child. She was a quiet leader, always confident and capable but not loud or dominating. People trusted her and I don't believe she would ever have broken those trusts. I guess you'd say she was a comforting person".

On June 8th, 2000, a NPWS hazard reduction burn in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park in Sydney took the lives of Claire Deane, Erik Furlan, George Fitzsimmons and Mark Cupit. It severely injured Jamie Shaw, Luke McSweeney and Natalie Saville.

Donations in the memory of those who died may be made to; RNS Hospital (cheques made payable, please, to 'Burns Unit - Royal North Shore Hospital', and mailed to Dr John Vandervord, Head of Burns Unit, RNS Hosp., St Leonards, 2065; the Concord Hospital Burns Unit; or, if you’re reading this outside Australia, the Burns Unit in your nearest city.

Nathan Fitzgerald has now married and is the father of two children.

The work in Coolabah Crescent continues and you are welcome to participate.


sanctuary coordination:
noelene hutchinson, + 612 9451 8064, gumnutnook@ozemail.com.au

text and image copyright, except for family photographs:
paul cosgrave, + 612 4787 6870, www.photoswordspeople.com

website design:
ivent services, + 612 4782 4697, www.ivent.com.au


The ‘Angel of the Bush’ Seat
The seat bears the motif "Claire, Angel of the Bush". The large sign says "Claire Deane, Field Officer, NPWS, born 09/08/74, died 08/06/00 – Claire loved the bush and cared deeply for this small reserve in Coolabah Crescent, next door to her home of 25 years. Joining NPWS on Jan 23rd 2000 as a Bush Regenerator brought Claire much happiness. On 8th June 2000, along with three colleagues, Claire died whilst assisting NPWS with a hazard control burn at Mt Ku-Ring-Gai. She experienced joy and satisfaction caring for Australia’s wonderful bush and would want others to share the same positive experience. A beautiful person whose caring spirit will live forever in this lovely little bush sanctuary"

The small sign says “This seat was made by the Peninsula Group of Sydney wood turners guild Inc. The tree from which it was crafted was well known to Claire and it is fitting that it now occupies a tranquil site in this garden as a memorial to a brave and caring young woman”.

Other memorials may be found at:
Mt Kuring-gai in the small park in Seaview St near the intersection with Merrilong Ave
In Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park overlooking the entrapment site, by the Mt Kuring-gai walking track
At Newport in Crescent Reserve where Claire supervised a small group of volunteers
At Narrabeen beside the lake where Claire worked as a bush regenerator

NPWS staff wishing to discuss Claire or aspects of the tragedy with Carol & Trevor are welcome to contact deanefamily@hotmail.com

Inquest Findings:
As a result of the findings of the Inquest, NPWS was charged in the Industrial Relations Commission of NSW with an offence. In part, in relation to that offence, it is alleged that the defendant: DID FAIL to ensure the health, safety and welfare at work of all its employees, whilst conducting a hazard reduction operation or prescribed burn, contrary to Section 15(1) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 1983.

For the complete Industrial Commission finding, click HERE.