By Callum Ludwig
Members of the Hillcrest and Little Yarra CFAs have lent a helping hand to brigades battling bushfires in Gippsland over the weekend.
The two Upper Yarra-based brigades assisted Maffra CFA, initially being ‘staged’ (stationed at) the Maffra Fire Station before being deployed to Briagolong.
Hillcrest CFA Captain was one of four members from his brigade who made the trek east and said they were sent to Link Road.
“At Link Road, we were tasked with a couple of different things, there were five tankers in our Strike Team 13 -14, and so we were tasked with one tanker to put on asset protection of a cabin or a small house that was up there,” he said.
“That included things like making sure that leaves and debris were raked away from the building, removing and disconnecting gas bottles that were around the house for barbecues or the hot water service.”
As of the afternoon of Wednesday 3 October, the fire in Briagolong near Link Road remains out of control, travelling in a south-easterly direction and ‘threatening homes and lives’ according to the VicEmergency alert status.
Mr Dickson said their task was to fight a fire down in a gully as it came up the hill.
“It wasn’t a roaring fire, it wasn’t huge, but we just had to make sure that it burnt to the edge of Link Road, and importantly that none of it jumped over the track into the bush on the other side of us,” he said.
“By the time we got there, it wasn’t massively windy, there was still a little bit of a breeze, but the conditions that certainly eased from what they appeared to have been earlier in the day, when the fire was really running.”
Residents in Briagolong have been advised it is now too late to leave the area safely so they must remain sheltered.
Mr Dickson said the fires are an important reminder that we’ve all got to be on our toes and as organised as we can be this fire season.
“We’re coming out of a drier winter and we’re going to be coming into a drier summer so we’ve got to make sure we have a fire plan and know what we’re going to do early days for if we hit an interesting fire day” he said.
“We don’t know what the balance of summer is going to go and throw up for us locally or whether we’ll end up with more jobs that we get dispatched to around the state but it’s super important that people use this bit of lead time and don’t just go and leave it to the last minute to start thinking about what they’re going to do.”
Little Yarra CFA’s Big Fill vehicle, led by Captain Les Hart also set out again for Maffra on the night of Tuesday 2 October, helping to collect water to relay to tankers fighting the blaze.
Mr Dickson said it’s comforting to know that brigades across the state will be on hand to similarly support the Yarra Ranges if we are struck by fire.
“It’s good to know that CFA and the other fire agencies can go and pull their people and crews into our area if we happen to need that support as well, it’s all one big system, you take resources from one area and deploy them where they’re needed to the other,” he said.
“There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes to make sure that we’re good to go out on the fire ground when we get there as well, they tee up food waiting for us and we got bused back home as a bit of fatigue management, with fresh drivers to bring our trucks back.”
