By Callum Ludwig
Many hands are making light work of clearing debris on Dee Road in Millgrove this week.
Volunteers for the Millgrove Muster have gotten to work, helping to reduce the fuel load for bushfires and make their area safer and more resilient to disaster.
Clare Alexander is the National Muster Officer of the Australian Resilience Corps and said the majority of volunteering around disasters happens afterwards but we can lessen the impact of these events when we prepare before they take place.
“The Millgrove residents have prioritised this area of Dee Road as being a critical location for the community, as a special meeting place, but also as a place with excessive fuel loads and noxious weeds and they expose the community to bushfires,” she said.
“We’re doing things like clearing the area away, widening the footpath, replanting flood-resistant vegetation in eroded areas and improving the access points so there are ways to be able to get onto the pathway and down to and out of the river if there was a disaster.”
Volunteers came from the Millgrove Residents Action Group (MRAG) and the local area, the Australian Resilience Corps and Connecting Communities Australia (CCA) as well as others who came from as far as Pakenham, St Kilda and the Melbourne CBD.
Ms Alexander said MRAG was incredibly pivotal to the success of bringing together this community event.
“They were the drivers, they have gone through the (Australian) Resilience Corps Community’s Framework workshop to identify the areas of need to build resilience against fire and flood,” she said.
“They know their local area, they know their local people and they have been incredibly crucial to the success of this. This is an opportunity to show the community what they can do together and further afield, what the nation could be doing to build resilience against fire and flood disasters.”
Three volunteers from CCA led the three teams of volunteers on day one, working with the Australian Resilience Corps and the Minderoo Foundation and a welcome and more positive change from their usual efforts assisting areas after a disaster.
CEO of CCA Glenn Price founded the organisation five years ago and said the Millgrove Muster is their very first.
“We’ve worked in drought-affected areas in Queensland and New South Wales and then following the fires three years ago, we’ve been working extensively around the south coast of New South Wales and in Gippsland,” he said.
“Having strong community action is absolutely vital, most of my work has been post-disaster so this is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. After the fires swept through the Bega Valley they’ve now worked on their evacuation plans, have better clearing, communication and equipment and have more water and generators.”
Volunteers began at about 9.35am, stopping for lunch at 12.30pm and finishing up at 3pm with adequate breaks. The other volunteer groups will do the same on Thursday 27 and Friday 28 April.
Mr Price said 50 communities around Australia had been identified as high-risk for the muster program.
“Millgrove was rated number one for bushfire risk, so we wanted to start here and work sling this important road,” he said.
“I think the fantastic thing is that MRAG is very active, which is a really great thing for giving people a perception of the risk they face and helping them to plan for that.”
The River Valley Church van was also on-site to start the volunteers’ day off with a nice coffee or tea to start the day.
President of MRAG Maureen Halit said she was amazed there were so many great people out there willing to help their small community.
“We just appreciate it so much, them helping our area so fire safe and such a beautiful area for people to visit and utilise,” she said.
“Without these people, we wouldn’t have had a hope of doing it. It’s a major project as Millgrove is such a fire-prone area but we need to do all that we can to help prevent fires and make it a safe community.”
