By Callum Ludwig
A Launching Place home that went up in flames on Monday 13 May was unable to be saved.
Crews from brigades across the Upper Yarra flocked to Alpine Boulevard at about 12.07pm responding to calls of a home fully involved in fire.
Hillcrest CFA 3rd Lieutenant Peter Jenkin was the incident controller for the blaze and said the Yarra Junction and Hillcrest CFA pumpers rocked up at the same time to a house fully involved from end-to-end and top to bottom.
“I did a quick initial size up and walk-around and realised we weren’t going to be able to save it, so it became about the asset protection of the other properties,” he said.
“Straight away I tasked the Yarra Junction crew to protect the closest house to the left of the property on fire, meanwhile we got water for our appliances to continue the firefight while we waited for other crews to arrive.”
A CFA spokesperson confirmed that 10 CFA units responded from the Wesburn, Hillcrest, Yarra Junction, Yellingbo, Hoddles Creek, Seville and Wesburn-Millgrove brigades, while Victoria Police also attended the scene.
Mr Jenkin said as crews were driving down the Warburton Highway, they could already see the plume of smoke and he requested over brigades be paged.
“There’d been multiple calls reporting flames showing, so we knew the house was going to be well alight and we were also told that there were no occupants in the house, he only thing that was in the house was the family pet,” he said.
“Unfortunately, we were unable to save the dog, as by the time we got there, it was just way too hot to get anywhere near the house and I certainly wasn’t going to be able to send any crews inside.”
The cause of the fire is believed to be known to fire investigators and will not be treated as suspicious.
Mr Jenkin said he feels for the family.
“I’ve got pet dogs and so forth, and they do become part of the family, so it will be a very hard time for them,” he said.
“The owners attended the fire, neighbours must have rung them and husband and wife were there at the fire and were pretty upset as you can imagine, they’d only been in the house for two months,”
“This is just one of those unfortunate things that happens, you can’t blame anyone.”
The incident was deemed under control at 12.44pm and safe at 2.11pm.
