Jenolan Caves saved from devastation during 2019 Green Wattle Creek bushfire

In 2019, Melissa Parker would have loved to be doing the same.

But, instead, she was deployed to work on the frontline alongside some of the country's most brave throughout the single worst bushfire event in Australia's history.

In place of the cold left-over meats, family and festive cheer was ash, a relentless shower of flying embers, walls of smoke and overwhelming sadness.

The Green Wattle Creek fire started on November 27, 2019 after a lightning strike in the Blue Mountains National Park, southwest of the Warragamba Dam.

At its height, it spread to cover five local government areas and threatened communities as far apart as Jenolan, Colo Vale, Megalong Valley and the western outskirts of Sydney.

It burned for months, and wasn't extinguished until February, 2020 when rainfall eventually came to the party.

It burned through 278,200 hectares, destroyed 37 homes and proved fatal - volunteer firefighters Geoffrey Keaton and Andrew O'Dwyer were killed in the fire.

The Green Wattle Creek blaze was massive. At one point it threatened to join the 'monster fire', Gospers Mountain inferno that burned out an area of 512,626 hectares - an area more than twice the size of the ACT.

Burning at the same time, the fires spewed smoke across most of NSW and at the end of 2019 people in place like Orange were effectively choking on the worst air quality anywhere in the world.

Melissa Parker has been a paramedic for 23 years.

She started out in Orange, has had stints at Canowindra and then in Sydney and worked as part of a helicopter crew too. She's now the station manager at Orange.

Aside from the day-to-day call-outs all ambulance paramedics respond to, Mrs Parker's services have been required in a number of disaster situations.

Nothing, though, was quite like her operation at Jenolan Caves.

On Boxing Day in 2019, Mrs Parker was the team lead paramedic tasked to Jenolan Caves for the Green Wattle Creek fire, with the fire fast approaching the Jenolan Caves area.

Firefighter crews and her team were faced with isolation (roads blocked from fire and debris), limited communications, heavy smoke and fire threatening from all sides over a period of days.

The paramedic crew treated one firefighter and helped save native wildlife over the three-day deployment.

Mrs Parker's team even moved oxygen tanks down into the cave just in case they had to retreat into the caves to escape the fire.

"We had no idea what we were about to face," she said.

"We had a lot of things to think about; safety was the big one. We had to ensure it was safe for us and then for the firefighters, too.

"It was a dangerous operation. The safest place for us was with them."

The paramedic team stayed at the caves for about four days, completed 12-hour shifts and was on call all night had the situation escalated.

For many thousands of years, Jenolan Caves was known to the local Aboriginal population as Binoomea, meaning "dark places".

Given the density of the smoke engulfing the region throughout the horrific bushfires in 2019-2020, there would be few times in its history when the region was blanketed in such darkness.

"It was very smoky," Mrs Parker said.

"There was lots of ash and burned leaves in the air. The major concern was embers would fly, and we didn't want to lose that important history for Australia."

Development first began at the caves in the late 1800s. The present day Caves House was constructed in 1898.

The Caves House, along with all of the buildings in the Jenolan Caves Karst Conservation Reserve, was added to the NSW State Heritage Register in 2004.

"We all wanted to save Jenolan and that history," Mrs Parker said.

"Working alongside those firefighters and how well they worked with everyone, their job is so vital. It's such an amazing role, and it was such a privilege to be there. The comradery was great."

"As the fires continued we started to see so much wildlife emerge because they were losing homes," Mrs Parker said.

"I felt sad for wildlife, the beautiful bush around them was burning to the ground. All of the lizards, wallabies ... they didn't have anywhere to go."

So Mrs Parker and the other paramedics on site helped treat the injured and homeless wildlife in the Jenolan area as well.

Mrs Parker and the other paramedics involved in saving the historic Jenolan Caves area received the Commissioner's Unit Citation for Service on Ambulance Appreciation Day last Friday, September 15.

She said their primary role while deployed to the caves was to provide medical assistance to firefighters working to battle the blaze.

Fortunately, just one firefighter required aid.

"It was easy for us," she added.

"It was a privilege to work beside them and battle bushfires and to see them put their lives at risk the way they did, we were in awe of them. To contribute in a small way, that was a privilege from my perspective.

"It was a happy moment to see the history of Jenolan preserved."

Reading this on mobile web? Download our news app. It's faster, easier to read and we'll send you alerts for breaking news as it happens. Download in the Apple Store or Google Play.

Sign-up to our latest newsletter