Community & Business
22 October, 2025
Friday October 17 was a busy night for emergencies in Gilgandra
It was a busy evening for local emergency services in Gilgandra last Friday, when a weather event across the district combined with two emergencies including one fire fatality in town.
The forecast for a hailstorm on Friday eventuated and at about 4pm large hailstones fell as part of a wider storm front.
The Newell Highway about nine kilometres south of Gilgandra was turned into an ice highway – with white covering the road and adjacent paddocks.
The local State Emergency Service unit were called to properties to assist residents with storm damage including a leaking roof towards Balladoran Railway Road, and to tarp a house in the Leeches Creek Road area because it had shattered windows.
Resident Alan Smith reported that he had “golf-ball sized or larger hailstones” fall at his rural property in the storm’s path. “This continued solidly until about 4.30pm. [The weather then] cleared briefly to sunshine and was then followed by another short hailstorm about 5pm,” he said. “This storm followed a familiar path moving from the top end of Bairstow’s Lane (Kickabil direction), northeast to where Leeches Creek Road intersects with the Newell Highway.”
He remarked that the hailstones were up to 100mm deep in areas which made the paddocks look like they were covered in snow. They also lasted like snow, reporting that some were still piled around his sheds 48-hours later. With harvest impending, extensive damage has been caused by the storm to several paddocks of crops – some which Alan said have been “have been completely mown to the ground”.
He also expressed concern about other effects of the storm damage to paddocks including the recovery time for grasses and defoliated trees, and livestock displacement due to the lack of feed.
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On what was also the first night of Twilight Golf at Gilgandra Golf Club, about two dozen players were caught out in the elements of the storm ducking for cover from the hailstones.
It wasn’t long after the storm lashed the district that emergency services were called to two other emergencies in town.
At around 7.45pm on Friday, they were called to Stocking Crescent, Gilgandra, following reports of a fire.
Officers attached to Orana Mid-Western Police District attended the scene and located a man, believed to be aged in his 60s, with significant burns.
Police officers on site managed to extinguish the flames prior to the arrival of fire crews. The man was treated by NSW Ambulance paramedics; however, he died at the scene.
The fire is not being treated as suspicious, and a report will be prepared for the information of the coroner.
Then at around 8pm on Friday emergency services were called to Miller Street (between Court and Wrigley Streets), following reports that a utility vehicle had crashed into a house.
The driver, a 25-year-old man was uninjured and subjected to a roadside breath test by police which returned a positive result. He was arrested and taken to Gilgandra Police Station where a secondary breath analysis returned an alleged reading of 0.163. He was charged with drive high-range prescribed concentration of alcohol (PCA) and granted conditional bail to appear before Gilgandra Local Court next month.
The occupant of the house, an 81-year-old man, was uninjured. There was significant structural damage to the front verandah of the Miller Street house.
The utility left the road and took out a tree stump on a neighbouring property before flipping into the verandah. A toolbox on the back of the ute was thrown off into the garden during the crash.
The occupant of the house told The Gilgandra Weekly that he was watching David Attenborough on TV when the ute collided into his house.
He said that he initially thought the noise was an earthquake as the whole house was shaking. He also said the driver was lucky to be alive, missing other obstacles in his path such as a telegraph pole.
The section of the road was also closed while the vehicle was retrieved, and the house stabilised. Police inquiries are ongoing.
Anyone with information about this incident is urged to contact Gilgandra Police or Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000. Information is managed on a confidential basis. The public is reminded not to report information via NSW Police social media pages.
