On The Up: Hawke’s Bay firefighter Robert Sheely awarded Golden Axe after US wildfire deployment
A Kiwi volunteer firefighter has been awarded a golden axe by the mayor of a US city for his work fighting a wildfire the size of the region he’s from.
In August, Hawke’s Bay rural volunteer firefighter Robert Sheely was one of 43 Fire and Emergency New Zealand members and staff deployed to fight fires in North America, where he was selected as task force leader, putting him in charge of 26 personnel: 16 Kiwis, six Australians and five Americans.
Sheely’s crew mainly fought fires in Washington state but also ventured into neighbouring Idaho during his 37-day deployment.
At the start of his deployment, Sheely completed two days’ training in Boise, Idaho, then drove nine hours to the fire line and spent the evening there.
Sheely, who has 20 years’ of experience fighting fires around New Zealand, said he worked 17 hours a day for 14 days, had three days off and then was back on for another 14 days.
His crew battled fires of around 10,000 to 20,000 acres that had been burning for multiple days.
The biggest fire the crew worked on during the deployment was the Little Giant wildfire in Washington, which Sheely said was roughly about the size of Hawke’s Bay.
“It was a huge event to take on.”
Around the Little Giant wildfire, Sheely said there were three camps with 2000 people from around the world in each.
Sheely spent his last fortnight in America fighting fires around Cle Elum in Washington.
During wildfires in 2017, the city had lost 97 homes.
But this year, Sheely and his crew stopped the fire jumping containment lines, preventing it from burning multimillion-dollar properties.
“My team sort of thought they were doing a pretty minimalist job, but in the eyes of the community, it was a completely different story,” Sheely said.
Cle Elum Mayor Matthew Lundh presented Sheely with a golden axe and told him to take it home to New Zealand because of his amazing job.
A golden axe, or gold-plated ceremonial axe plaque, is an award given to firefighters for outstanding work across the world.
“When you go across there, you don’t know what you’re going to or what you’re going to come across,” Sheely said.
“Then to be given an award like, that is just another level.”
Sheely said he couldn’t have done the work without the support of his partner, Sam, and his family.
He had since returned to Hawke’s Bay and was working full time with his business, Extreme Turf, which built playgrounds across the central North Island.
But he was preparing for what he believed would be a busy fire season this summer, with more fires expected as the ground dried and wind increased around October/November, plus the forecast El Niño.
Sheely said in the past six years he’d seen multiple deliberate burn-offs grow out of control.
He said he and his crew “only do the big stuff” and regularly travelled across the country, focusing on multi-day fires like the Tongariro fires in November 2025.
Like all rural firefighters, Sheely is a volunteer and not paid for his time.
He encouraged anyone interested in becoming a volunteer firefighter to visit their local fire station and inquire about joining.
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in the UK, Germany, and New Zealand.