IN MEMORY OF

JOHAN FREDRICK HILLIER

ROBERT HENRY JOHNSTON

GEORGE McCORKILL

JOHN WILTSHIRE-BUTLER

WHO PERISHED IN A BUSHFIRE

IN THE COURSE OF DUTY

WITH THE FORESTS DEPARTMENT

ON

2nd JANUARY 1958

Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), Saturday 4 January 1958, page 1

PERTH, Friday. Fifteen children have been left fatherless by a tragedy in which four forestry workers were burnt to death in a bush fire near Nannup yesterday afternoon.

The victims; were: George E. McCorkill, 62, Jan Hillier, 37, married with four children under 12, Robert Henry Johnston, 30, married with three children under 7, and John Francis Wiltshire-Butler, 37, married with eight children under 12. McCorkill was unmarried.

They were members of a gang of workmen stationed at Willow Springs, a tiny Forestry Department settlement in thick scrub 18 miles south-east of Nannup and about 170 miles from Perth.

An overseer and six men went to a wide front fire in the Nannup area and were assisted by local volunteers.

The Willow Springs men were making a break on the edge of the fire when apparently, the wind turned and drove the flames on them. They dropped their tools and ran.

The overseer and two of the men managed to reach the safety of a nearby road. The men had scattered as they ran and when the three reached the road there was no sign of the others.

A thick pall of smoke enveloped the scene and the survivors believed that their mates had reached other safety points.

When they did not turn up, Nannup office was informed by radio-telephone on their truck.

Early today the bodies of the four men were found close together at a spot where the fire had raged through the tall kauri trees and had burnt out the undergrowth.

Follow up

John Francis Wiltshire-Butler was the grandfather of John Butler a present day (2020) singer songwriter who in 2010 performed on the main stage at the Nannup Music Festival. One of the highlights of his performance was the singing of “Danny Boy” on his Grandfathers steel guitar.

John Butler told the crowd his grandma had promised the first child to learn to play would be given her late husband's guitar. It was a 16-year-old Butler, of course, who ended up with the instrument, although it sat under his bed for four years.

When his grandma got sick, Butler vowed to learn the song his grandfather played for her to make her smile. "I'm not saying this song saved her life," Butler laughed during the opening chords of that famous Irish ballad Danny Boy, a song he still plays to his grandma whenever they get together.