April 2006 - Chewton.net

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THAT FIRE - FOUR PERSPECTIVES... CFA NEWS Chewton CFA got the call at 1402hrs on Thursday 9th March. When we reached the scene the fire was out of control, heading to the hills and towards Elphinstone. The Chewton tanker headed up Bubbs Lane into a property over the hill back towards Chewton, as we needed to stop the fire getting into the hill. For quite a while we worked hard on the north flank which soon paid off for us. The Shire’s graders were working on the roads in the bushland which was really lucky. They came into the fire ground and started dozing firebreaks around- and these worked really well. Meanwhile, more ground support was called in, along with waterbombers. The fire was eventually pulled up along the north side of the McKay Reservoir. As the head of the fire was in a difficult area for the tankers to get into, it was a great effort by everyone there. We’d had CFA strike teams come from all over the area (a strike team is 5 tankers from other groups). I believe there were 4 to 5 of them there, as were Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) and Parks Victoria units. We all work very well together. The Police were there, and so were the Red Cross to feed everyone. Once the fire was contained the hard work really started. The mopping up, as we call it, is to make sure that everything is completely out. We were worried about the coming Sunday as the temperature was forecast to be 39 degrees! For the next four days and nights crews worked around the clock to make sure everything was safe. At 0030hrs on Monday morning we all went home at last. Standing on the front veranda at home I felt the first spot of rain at 0100hrs. What a relief that was! Fire restrictions are still in force so no burning off can be done unless you get a permit from the Council. We have no idea when the current restrictions will be lifted because it is still very dry out there. Captain Jo Willen, Chewton CFA. GREAT PUB GRUB now at Chewton's Red Hill Hotel Wednesdays 6 - 8.30 p.m. for $5 meals Fridays and Saturdays 6 - 8.30 p.m. for the Full Menu Sundays 12 - 2 p.m. for a Roast Lunch BOOK NOW! Phone 5472 2541 HOUSE SAVED On Thursday 9th March I received a frantic call on my mobile from Captain Jo, “Gary! Where are you? The Bushlands are on fire!! Much too close for comfort... We need a crew!!” I now know what they mean by the expression ‘blood running cold’! Hoping that I sounded calmer than I was, I replied, “Jo, I can’t help you. I am in Tasmania”. Realising that I was totally irrelevant to the crisis (some would say “nothing new there”), Jo wisely rang off with a promise to get back to me when it was all over. Well, Dear Reader, you will by now be aware that Chewton Brigade - ably supported by other brigades - not only saved the Bushlands but my home as well. I am very grateful for this, especially as I had recently applied three coats of Watermelon Pink paint to it! When I got back from Tassie and saw just how close a call it had been I began to have a better understanding of the prolonged battle. My partner Michael told me that the view of the (normally black) bushlands from our home that night resembled a suburb of red street lights! No property was lost - this time - and nobody was injured during the fight or in the ensuing mopping up operation. It could, however, have been a major tragedy. Had the battle been lost my home would have been only one of many to burn that night. The fire could very easily have escaped the Bushlands into surrounding forests and pine plantations, threatening not only Chewton township but Castlemaine as well. I am told that several inhabitants of the Bushlands held a communal Thanksgiving Dinner the following Monday evening. It seemed appropriate. I am also told that the whole kerfuffle was started by a neighbour using an angle grinder. This seems like a good time to remind everyone that Victoria in summer is a potentially very dangerous place! Please, please think about what you have planned for these hot days and ask yourself, “Do I REALLY need to do this today?” Michael and I would like to thank the tireless Captain Jo and the rest of our wonderful Brigade for a job very well done - although Jo said to me later that it just would not have looked too good had the CFA Secretary’s house been lost! Gary Van den Driesen. Thanks to Liza and Carol at the Red Hill Hotel who again supported the brigade by donating ice on the day of the fire. They have also been running raffles for us! And we thank the community for supporting the raffles - thanks everyone. Captain Jo.
BUSHLANDS BLAZE “The Bushlands are on fire. Do what you think you must do,” Gary Van den Driesen told his partner Michael Kuhle. Gary is with the Chewton CFA and had just been phoned by Chewton CFA captain Jo Willen to attend a blaze that was burning out of control in Bubbs Lane – around the corner from Gary and Michael’s home in Miners Hut Road. Gary was in Tasmania but he immediately rang Michael to raise the alarm. Michael, at work that afternoon at Mount Alexander Hospital, jumped in his car and sped home. “It was a rally drive home,” he said. “When I got to the Red Hill pub I could see the smoke.” Michael’s heart was racing. “When I got home I closed all the windows to keep the embers out. I could see the flames clearly from my window. It was a real shock. I grabbed our documents and left.” Firetrucks, sirens blaring, poured into the Bushlands from all directions and helicopters and planes with water for bombing roared overhead as Michael drove out of the area and to safety at the hospital. But Helen Bichard in Bubbs Lane was far from safe. The fire had caught her five-acre property and raced towards her wooden house. Helen couldn’t ring for help because she didn’t have a landline telephone and her mobile can’t get a signal on her property (she’s with Telstra!). She had no transport either, as her car was being repaired after hitting a kangaroo a few days earlier. There was only one thing to do. Run. “At times like that you realise the most important thing to do is just get out. So I ran. I didn’t want to get incinerated,” she said. Helen escaped uninjured but she still had the worry that her house and all her belongings would be destroyed. She screamed out to nearby CFA volunteers for help and waved frantically for them to “come this way, this way” to her front gate. The firefighters sped up the road to her house. They arrived just in time, putting out the flames just a few metres from Helen’s house. Her home and things were saved. The fire burned out more than 400 acres of private land between the Bushlands and Elphinstone. It took some 26 firetrucks from local and surrounding districts and three aircraft - a helicopter water bomber, a plane water bomber and a surveillance plane – to bring the fire under control and eventually put it out. They were backed up by staff and vehicles from Parks Victoria, DSE, police and the Red Cross. Fortunately, no one was injured and no homes were lost. “It was pretty bad,” Jo Willen said. “It went into a stage 2 fire. The Bushlands is pretty hilly and we couldn’t get up to where the flames were. We had to wait for the fire to come to us. We did well to contain it.” The CFA stayed on site for the next four days to make sure the fire was completely out and the area and residents were safe. Helen Bichard had three firetrucks on her property throughout the first night and served the firefighters juice and snacks when they weren’t pulling down smouldering trees, putting out embers and making the site safe. “They were just fantastic, so skilled,” she said. “I was and am very, very grateful to them.” It was the first fire in the Bushlands for at least 40 years. It caught residents by surprise because it was not a total fire ban day or particularly hot, and it wasn’t very windy. Michael Gillies Smith. YOUR INFORMATION SOURCE DURING AN EMERGENCY For the past three years, ABC Local Radio in Victoria has been building a close relationship with emergency services to make sure that any event which threatens life or property is reported in a timely and accurate way. Since the 2002 fires in Victoria’s High country, the ABC has offered its resources to emergency services to meet that objective. In consultation with the CFA Incident Controller and their team, the ABC will broadcast regular information about dangerous fires. During the recent fire in Chewton, this meant broadcasting on Central Victoria’s Local ABC Station, FM 91.1 between 3.00 and 5.00pm. Information about the location of the fire, the direction it was travelling and advice to property owners in the near vicinity was broadcast every 15 minutes to ensure that residents were kept up to date, and to ensure that information was no more than 15 minutes away. Put simply, in Chewton, ABC Central Victoria FM 91.1 should be seen as an indispensable resource during an emergency. Jonathan Ridnell, Station Manager, ABC Radio, Central Victoria.
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April 2006 - Chewton.net

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