By Callum Ludwig
A Healesville house has been left destroyed after a fire broke out at about 7.30pm on Friday 17 February.
Further information from callers and the St Leonard’s fire tower informed brigades that the Graceburn Avenue property was fully involved and an escalation of ‘make pumpers 3’ was requested as well as breathing apparatus support.
1st Lieutenant of Healesville Fire Brigade and Officer-in-charge at the incident Kenneth Glenn said the response included the Yarra Glen, Coldstream and Badger Creek brigades as well as Bayswater CFA’s breathing apparatus and Yellingbo CFA’s rehab unit.
“We arrived to find about 80 per cent of the house involved and burning quite well, so we ran a couple of lines out to stop the fire getting to the other 20 per cent,” he said.
“We did what we call an aggressive fire attack on it and knocked it down and contained it so it couldn’t spread or reignite. It is a bed and breakfast and the people had gone out so no one was inside.”
Crews returned to fire stations at about 12.30am, with the clean-up not finished until 2am. A fire investigation unit attended the scene on Saturday morning, with the cause of the fire still undetermined.
Mr Glenn said a pretty major rebuild will be required for the property.
“They estimated replacement cost is about $1.7 million, so it was a pretty significant housefire. The owners are fully aware and a relative came up to check it out on Saturday morning,” he said.
“Victoria Police were at the fire during their job and we also had Ambulance Victoria on the scene for most of the job to look after the firefighters because it was stinking hot.”
Chirnside Park Fire Brigade was called out to the Healesville fire station to help ensure there were crews available to respond in case of any other incidents.
Mr Glenn said from a firefighter’s perspective, the conditions posed a significant risk.
“The gear we wear and the weather and fire makes it fairly hot and we dehydrate fairly quickly, by the time we’ve done 20 minutes or 25 minutes in a breathing apparatus, you’ve got to go down sit down in the ice chairs, get your body temperature down and rehydrate with fluids,” he said.
“The other compounding factor is that given the age of the house, we have to assume that there are asbestos products in there. All the gear that we wear for that job has to be taken off, hosed down and put in decontamination bags to be specially cleaned.”
Yellingbo CFA’s rehab unit attends major fires locally and provides cooled chairs, water and electrolytes to firefighters at regular intervals to prevent the risk of dehydration.
Yellingbo CFA Captain Jeremy Hardy said fighting fires places a lot of heat and strain on firefighters’ bodies.
“CFA now go through a great effort to try and ensure that their members do actually recover under those sorts of conditions so they can go home safely to their loved ones and back to work the following day without having suffered any health problems,” he said.
“We also do health monitoring of the firefighters with Ambulance Victoria as they come through and cool down, we’re looking for carbon monoxide from breathing in any smoke or fumes from the fires and their heart rate, as well as their fluid intake.”
