One of Sydney’s largest fires of the 1960’s - The Pulpit Point Mobil Oil Fire

History of Pulpit Point and the Mobil Oil Depot

Pulpit Point, located in the suburb of Hunters Hill in Sydney, was the home of one of Sydney’s most integral oil depots since the city’s early history. Situated along Pulpit Point to Fern Bay, sailing ships and cargo vessels delivered oil related goods as early as 1895, unloading stock such as kerosene, petrol, and lubricating oil. In 1907 the oil depot become known as and operated under the name of the Vacuum Oil Company which provided employment to over 3000 individuals and had 13 main bulk seaboard installations for cargo delivery. Across the years it continued to expand as a major facility taking up over 26 acres of land and housing many large storage facilities including a large liquid storage farm of over 40 tanks amalgamating to 1,000,000 gallons (4,456,090 litres) in capacity and sheds varying from 5670m2 to 4100m2. This made the depot one of the biggest in Sydney.

Smoke plumes from the Pulpit Point Fire [Museum of Fire Collection]

In the 1950s to 1960s the company renamed to Mobil Oil which may be a much more familiar name today as this is what we know as ExxonMobil. The Mobil Oil Depot would however not last forever and even though this depot was a major installation and a key place for the city to receive its oil and petroleum reserves, the land would ultimately be put up for sale in the 1970’s and then successfully sold in the 1980s to be redeveloped for residential purposes. Today the area of Pulpit Point is an example of prime real estate in Sydney. Situated relatively close to the city centre and along the waterfront, the land which once saw many barges take space in the bay, now sees over 350 homes Interspersed with small parks.

Tuesday 27 October – The day that it went up in flames

Whilst the history of one of Sydney’s most major industrial ports has been lost to the archaeological record, it certainly has not escaped the history books as the depot was not without its interesting stories. One of those major moments in time was in October of 1964. At 3:25pm on October 27th the first call was received at Drummoyne Fire Station to a fire at the depot, directly sent from the depot’s watchman. Soon after calls began to flood headquarters and crews were quickly dispatched from surrounding areas with the original brigades responding coming from Gladesville, Crows Nest, Lane Cove and Leichhardt. When Gladesville arrived at the scene they quickly called through to headquarters to let them know that the situation was more dire than anticipated. A number of oil and petrol drums had caught alight which threatened the larger oil tanks, requiring much more assistance to be able to prevent the spread of the flames to these highly flammable and dangerous tanks.

Overview of the Pulpit Point Fire 27 October 1964 [Museum of Fire Collection]

It did not take long for the senior management of the brigade to realise the weight of the situation and at 3:40pm, Chief Officer Barber and Deputy Chief Officer Lowther both responded accordingly to help triage and manage the growing risk at hand. At this same time, the District Officer from Crows Nest alerted headquarters that oil tanks were now alight, ramping up the severity of the situation and requiring even more brigades than before. Deputy Chief Officer Meeves upon arriving at the scene made an initial survey that resulted in the seat of the fire found to be now at the drum filling section of the depot. Now a major oil fire that required urgent attention, fire floats were called upon to the scene to provide support from the bay whilst crews needed to rely upon water in the harbour to be able to mitigate the growing fire. Extra brigades would arrive from Drummoyne, Mascot, Balmain, The Rocks, Concord, Glebe and Ryde to provide the much-sought assistance. At 4:35pm Chief Officer Barber provided the following situation report,

Fire floats in action tackling the blaze at Pulpit Point [Museum of Fire Collection]

“Position remains the same, three fire floats and two motor fire engines at work. A shortage of water exists from the street mains and getting larger branches to work from the bottom of the yard by medium of water supplied by fire floats. The fire covers 1½ acres involving a number of buildings. Fire at present confined to 44-gallon drum containers and no large storage tanks are, as yet, involved.”

But less than an hour later the situation had changed. The Chief Officer further relayed how the fire had now spread to a nearby 14, 864 m2 shed which held a large number of oil drums.  Although a number of these drums were alight, it prevented the fire from spreading to the large oil tanks which would have caused large explosions, potentially levelling Pulpit Point. Due to this reduced risk and with the situation in hand the fire management by crews on site began to reduce and a number of brigades were no longer required to assist. All crews would effectively return to their stations by 10:00pm that night.

Crews having refreshments after the Pulpit Point Fire, October 1964 [Museum of Fire Collection]

This oil drum blaze at the depot was one of the most spectacular fires that Sydney had seen. The seat of the fire located in the oil drums caused a giant cloud of smoke that could be seen from kilometres away. The explosiveness of the barrels resulted in several of them launching upwards into the sky with a loud bang, causing quite the sight for onlookers to the fire. Thankfully this fire was not as severe as it could have been and no lives were lost, especially in the instance of the oil tanks catching alight, but due to the efforts of firefighters, this was able to be averted. Over 75 officers and firefighters attended the blaze, and it was well recorded how efficiently and effectively the brigade worked to quench the fire, making this incident one well deserved for the history books.

-Blog written by Ben Dickson, Curator of the Museum of Fire.