Bushfire memories bite deep

SIX weeks after Black Saturday the pain of losing 15 homes on his patch, in spite of what by any account was a super-human effort by him and his brigade members, still weighs heavily on Dixons Creek Fire Brigade captain Graeme Miller.
That two of those homes belonged to members bites even deeper.
On a day which saw the worst bushfires in Australia’s history and with blazes all over the Yarra Valley, there simply weren’t enough trucks.
Dixons Creek has two tankers.
“I’m sorry we could not be at everybody’s place,” Graeme told his community when they gathered a couple of weeks ago to thank the brigade.
“We would like to think we did save quite a few, although we lost 15 homes in the area and goodness knowns how many sheds.”
Brigade lieutenant Drew Adamson was on Tanker 1 with Graeme. He watched as his house went up.
“You get that gut wrenching feeling of you have to go, but you can’t … you can’t leave your mates,” he said.
When the Mail spoke with Drew just over a week had passed and the fires were still burning. Toolangi, was under potential threat and there were constant outbreaks for weeks around Pauls Lane and in Dixons Creek and Healesville.
He said they knew on the Saturday morning it was going to be bad.
With the Kilmore and Bunyip fires were going and the Dixons Creek crew were part of a strike team waiting in Healesville.
The report came through that there were fires at Murrindindi.
The hell that raged through their area over the next 12 hours started at about 2.30pm with a report of a fire at Train Track Vineyard in Yarra Glen.
“We took care of that as best we could until it escaped over the Yarra River with a northerly pushing it towards Domaine Chandon,” Drew said.
“We looked back from the top of the hill and could see the fire had taken off through Dixons Creek and Steels Creek.”
As they raced home, tragedy met them at Yarra Glen. They stopped to put out a car fire. It was too late to do anything for the occupant who they later learned was Gareth Jones-Roberts, a Yarra Glen man who crashed his car as he was returning home after driving down to get fuel for a water pump.
“We put the fire out and had to just leave,” Drew said. What followed was a desperate dash from property to property – Steels Creek Road, Gibbs Road, Gulf Road.
“We headed down Gulf Road to the Melba towards Dixons Creek and saw that Lyn Mullens’ had gone – their house had gone,” he said.
“We got to Wills Road and there was fire all around. We saved the ones we could but we couldn’t get access to some and just had to leave them.”
By the time they got to Pinnacle Lane the firefront had passed there – some houses had been saved, others had not.
They continued on up the Melba Highway towards The Slide.
Tanker 2’ s crew had fought but failed to save Lyn’s house and as Drew and the Tanker 1 crew drove past they were battling another blaze, surrounded by flames.
“The bush was alight to 30 metres high, the heat intensity was worse there than anywhere else, the trees were so close and it was like channels taking the fire up to the top,” Drew said.
At 5.07pm brigade member Bernie Miller was looking out from their cellar door in Dixons Creek. Old Healesville Road was alight in four places and she could see the fire coming across Archibalds the Towt’s properties on Highbow Hill on Melba Highway.
She raced to the tiny Dixons Creek fire station where desperate calls were going out for more trucks.
“People started coming in from Steels Creek and Toolangi with horrific stories,” she said.
The Toolangi tanker arrived with Bruce McClements and his crew to help – a God-send with resources so stretched.
“One man said he’d passed a burning car on The Slide and had driven through flames and smoke.
“By that stage we had about 50 people here, including a woman with a broken ankle. It was horrific,” she said.
“We knew they couldn’t stay and took them outside the station, but took one look and put everyone back in,” she said.
Some relief came in the early hours of Sunday morning. “We all ended up at Yarra Glen about 1 or 2am,” Drew said.
“Some of the guys had burns on their faces, burnt ears … I guess you sort of put your friends and neighbours first … I can’t express enough my admiration for my colleagues,” he said.
For Graeme Miller there is no doubt Black Saturday was the defining experience of a long career as a voluntary fire-fighter.
“I probably learned more on that day than ever before,” he told a grateful community.