By Jed Lanyon
Upper Yarra firefighters awoke to an awful sight last weekend as they found burnout tracks across the entrance of the Wesburn/Millgrove fire station.
While hoon driving in Warburton has been an ongoing issue, Wesburn/Millgrove CFA Captain Sascha Grant said he was “disappointed” to see their brigade vandalised with skid marks.
“At about twenty past one on Saturday (31 July) morning, we had a car coming from the Warburton way, it came in here to the apron of the fire station and proceeded to spend less than a minute just doing burnouts here and exited back towards Warby after they had done their deeds.
“We do have a bit of a burnout problem here, but normally it’s constrained to the entrance of the intersection of McKenzie King Drive and Warburton Highway… This is the first time they’ve come and done it up here. It’s really frustrating because it’s going to take us forever to try and have this wear off. Whereas if it’s on the road it wears off straight away.”
Police are assessing CCTV footage from the night but Mr Grant admits the combination of the black and white footage and the bright headlights of the car makes it difficult to identify.
“It’s really disappointing. We’re all part of the community, we’re all community members and we do this for our community and all our neighbouring communities as well. It’s really tough, I don’t think they maliciously targeted us, I think it was just opportunistic.
Mr Grant described the incident as a “lapse in judgement” and shared what he would say to the perpetrator if he found who was responsible.
“I’d say for them to have a think about it. I know that’s what they do for their fun, but it’s not legal. I’d want them to think about the impact of the community and our members here. And hey, if they want to come down here and help us try and clean it off, then that’d be great.
“If they needed us in an emergency, if they did a burnout and hit something, we’re going to respond and come and look after them in any way we’d look after someone in the community,” he said.
“I’m just disappointed.”
Wesburn/Millgrove CFA currently has 39 members and Mr Grant said they would welcome more locals, who are looking to make a difference within their community.
“If anybody in the community is interested or looking to get involved, let me know, get in touch with the brigade through our Facebook page or through the CFA. We’re always happy for people to come down and be involved.”
