Defence unprepared for fire, inquiry hears AN army officer has described frantic efforts to battle an aggressive bushfire at a military training ground with inadequate equipment as the blaze set off unexploded ordnance. The fire went on to destroy five homes and burned for more than a month. A commission of inquiry in Sydney is looking into the circumstances surrounding the fire at Marrangaroo Training Area at Lithgow, near the Blue Mountains, on October 16. Defence Explosive Ordnance Training instructor, Warrant Officer Andrew Newsome, told the inquiry on Tuesday his staff were unprepared when the fire was sparked by a botched explosive ordnance training exercise at the site. The inquiry has heard the fire proved a danger to Defence personnel trying to fight it on the day and some were almost hit by shrapnel from unexploded ordnance set off by the blaze. They put out some of the fire with shovels and using the hose. But Warrant Officer Newsome said the flames were too high and the hose they had didn't reach the main part of the blaze. "There wasn't really anything we could do to fight that end of the fire," he told the inquiry. We couldn't get to the face of it ... there might have been more unexploded bombs. Warrant Officer Newsome said they couldn't do much more with "the equipment on hand." The inquiry has already heard that hazard reduction had not taken place at the site for almost 20 years despite a Rural Fire Service (RFS) recommendation two years earlier to have it done. An RFS investigation was satisfied that the explosives training exercise caused the massive fire, which became known as the State Mine Fire. The fire burnt through 50,000 hectares and destroyed five homes and seven structures in the Lithgow area. The hearing continues before former Sydney judge John O'Meally.