A COMMUNITY alerting siren is now in place in Steels Creek, ready to warn residents of life-threatening emergency incidents.
Steels Creek is among 23 towns across the Yarra Ranges that the State Government says will benefit from sirens that will be used to alert the communities to emergencies such as fires, hazardous material incidents, floods and severe storms.
Residents are pleased to finally have another warning system in the event they lose telephone and power connections, but say testing is paramount to people understanding the siren.
Acting Premier and Police and Emergency Services Minister Peter Ryan announced the launch of the state-wide pilot program at Monbulk CFA last Thursday.
Mr Ryan said the sirens could be activated remotely from the Incident Control Centre or the State Control Centre, or manually from local CFA stations.
Steels Creek is the only community in the Yarra Valley to take part in the program but does not have its own CFA station.
The locations chosen for the pilot program were usually places where CFA brigade stations or infrastructure had working sirens available to use.
But residents from the Hunts Lane Community Fireguard applied for a siren following the 2009 bushfires where 10 people died.
It has been installed at the Steels Creek tennis courts on the corner of Hunts Lane and Steels Creek Road.
Hunts Lane Community Fireguard member Athel Smith said on Black Saturday the power and telephone lines went down, preventing some residents from being aware of the impending danger.
“We’ve got limited exit roads and still have trees and branches hanging over them,” he said.
“We’re very vulnerable.
“We had four people near us die near Old Kinglake Road … we don’t know if they got adequate warning to get out in time.”
Mr Smith said residents were told the Steels Creek siren would only be operated remotely in the case of an emergency.
“We originally wanted the ability to operate the siren manually but we were told it would only be done remotely,” he said.
“We do want regular testing done, say one Sunday a month to make residents aware.
“The outstanding questions we have need to be answered soon because the situation is serious this year.”
Mr Ryan said the pilot program would test and refine how the sirens worked in practice before further sirens were implemented.
“The purpose of this pilot is to test the procedures to activate the sirens, the community understanding of sirens as an alerting tool, and also the limitations of sirens because they are not suitable for every community,” he said.
“It’s important the community understands sirens are not a call to evacuate.
“A siren sounding for five minutes means there is significant danger and you need to seek further information.”
Member for Eastern Victoria Region Edward O’Donohue said that on days of very high or extreme fire risk, leaving was always the safest option.
“If you’re in two minds, you should go,” he said.
“Wait and it’s too late.”
What it means
An activated community siren will indicate one of two scenarios:
– A siren might sound for up to 90 seconds to indicate a CFA Brigade was
responding to an incident nearby; or
– A prolonged five-minute signal would indicate a significant emergency
was underway, conditions were changing and people must seek further
information.
Upon hearing an emergency siren, residents should refer to www.cfa.vic.gov.au, www.ses.vic.gov.au, local ABC radio, the CFA FireReady app for smartphones or call the Bushfire Information Line on 1800 240 667.
