By Callum Ludwig
The Warburton Fire Brigade is holding a community meeting to keep Warburton residents informed and prepared for potential bushfires.
All are encouraged to head to the Brigade on Wednesday 1 November at 7pm where brigade members will be on hand to discuss any concerns and answer any questions.
Community Safety Coordinator at the Warburton Fire Brigade Bernie McCarthy said every fire season they like to keep the community informed on the conditions that are likely to be important for the coming summer.
“It’s important for the community to understand the local fire risks and so on as we approach it from spring, particularly this year with an El Nino likely, because there’s been three years of good growth and we need to keep our focus on what the local risks are,” he said.
“We’re surrounded by forests which is lovely and we really appreciate them but we need to understand that farmland and forest can equally be a risk so we need to stay on top of things.”
One of the key points of discussion will be the Fire Danger Rating system that came into place in September 2022 and how residents can apply it to their family situation.
Mr McCarthy said it’s been a long time since it’s burned in Warburton, given the last really big bushfire the area faced was Ash Wednesday in 1983.
“We need to know and understand that there are continuing ongoing risks to the environment I suppose any year really, but it’s exacerbated by high temperatures and low rainfall,” he said.
“This is an opportunity for the community to come and ask questions and for us to be available to answer them. We need to be able to tell them, what the local risks are and what we understand from experts who informed us so that the community can make informed decisions about what they do for their families.”
The new Fire Danger Rating System was introduced in September 2022 dropped the ratings from six categories to four and is used universally throughout the country.
Mr McCarthy said individual families need to make decisions for themselves based on their own particular circumstances.
“A lot of people set a particular risk rating and say if it reaches that rating, they won’t be in the district that day,” he said.
“Every family needs to have a survival plan, know what the dangers are of leaving late, where the places of last resort are, what they need to do for their house and how to decrease the risk of embers affecting their house.”
