Donnybrook Bushfire: Restaurant hails Bunbury taxi for heroic 500 meals for firefighters

An outpouring of support from the bushfire-ravaged Donnybrook community is keeping spirits of firefighters on the frontline high, with locals going above and beyond to help those keeping them safe. The South West town has been under siege by several blazes which have ripped through almost 6000ha since Monday night, when a freak lightning storm struck 300,000 times across WA. Hundreds of volunteer and career firefighters have been battling the infernos — which are fluctuating between Emergency and Watch and Act level — around the clock since. And behind them, is the tight-knit community doing their part. All out of food and needing to make 200 meals for the heroic firies and emergency services personnel — one local restaurant paid a taxi driver to pick up supplies all the way from Bunbury and drive them down. When Donnybrook Riverside Restaurant owner Suren Numberdar got a call on Wednesday night that 200 meals were needed for those on the frontline, he did not hesitate. “We didn’t have that much time to think,” he said. “Normally we close between 2:30pm and 5pm. We’d almost locked the door around the time I got a call... around 2:30pm and they want to pick up at 5pm.” Within two-and-a-half hours, he, together with his pregnant wife and younger brother Ravi Jangra, who he works at the restaurant with, had whipped up 60 serves of fish and chips, 60 burgers and 74 serves of pasta. Unprepared for an order of such size — with a restaurant seated capacity of 80 — he went to great lengths to make it happen. “I checked what we had left in the coolroom and in the freezer,” Mr Numberdar said. “No restaurant keeps 200 meals. “The bakery couldn’t supply that number and we didn’t have the resources to go to Bunbury to get meat patties and burger buns. “So I called a taxi company in Bunbury — I had already called my supplier — for the driver to go there and pick up my stuff. We didn’t have any other option.” It cost them $100 in the fare, but that was neither here nor there for the brothers, who also cooked for those battling the Thomson Brook blaze last week. “It’s okay because money doesn’t matter in that situation, they (firefighters) are doing the hard work and now it’s our responsibility to help them,” he said. “It doesn’t matter the hours because last week they picked up food here at 11pm and we close at 8:30pm. Me and my younger brother came back and cooked the food. I let them know — ‘anytime, 24 hours’.” “My wife she came and helped because we had nearly 80 pastas (to make) and only 20 pans to make it. So she came here, we used 20 pans and she cleaned them then gave them back to us. Prepping, cutting the tomatoes, onions, the packing. She helped us and it all worked very well.” They made another 250 meals on Thursday night. The Donnybrook Hotel was also making meals for emergency crews.