My first tour of duty
by Chris Dosser, Molyullah Fire Brigade
(written in February 2003)
The outlook for this summer’s fire season was not a good one. With the continuing drought conditions the countryside was golden dry and not likely to pass as just another summer with only little fire activity to be recorded. The time would come this season for all the training that we had carried out to be put into practice. With some lightning strikes in the north east area it was just a matter of when would the phone call come and where would I be off to.
After nearly going to Corryong for three days, my first tour of duty was to be in the Mt Buffalo area. We were required in Benalla at 5.15am to board the bus to take us via Wangaratta to pick up the rest of the strike team then on to Myrtleford. All off at the Savoy Club for breakfast and then to our staging area to pick up the trucks and off to Nug Nug for our 12 hour shift.
Upon arrival at Nug Nug, our strike team leader Barry informed us of the plan for the day. We were on the edge of the bush that had been control burnt the night before and we had to patrol and black out trouble spots. The Wang tanker, which I was aboard, and Everton tanker had to follow a track to Stony Creek, blacking out along the way. We hadn't been gone more than an hour before we were redeployed to assist in another area.
We met up with the strike team leader and another tanker on the Buffalo River Road for a bite to eat and new instructions, and then off to help a crew from DSE to carry out some back burning to stop a fire reaching a pine plantation alongside Lake Buffalo.
The control line was along Sandy Creek, a 4WD track with the right hand side ascending the hill being the back burn and the left hand side had been burnt out some two years prior. The track was a very steep climb to the top where it flattened out to a distinct ridgeline. Once on top we turned around, were given our tasks and proceeded to carry them out. Our task was to assist the crew with the burn whilst the two remaining tankers blackened out what had been burnt the night before.
Whilst talking to the blokes about the burn we were also greeted by the fire. Without warning it sent up a spiral of flames to the point where we had gathered, sending us and our tanker back up the track and the other crew down the track in quick time away from danger, as if to say to us, “Stay on your toes with your wits about you because I may be a back burn but this is the real thing”.
This was to be a long day in trying conditions with contrasts of heat and smoke and steep terrain at the fire’s edge, down to families water skiing as we filled the tanker at the boat ramp at Lake Buffalo. By the time 8 o'clock rolled around we were looking forward to being relieved but, with a wind change due anytime and night soon upon us, we couldn’t leave the small DSE crew alone with this fire. We had to wait for our relief to come to us.
At 11.30pm we were all “relieved” to be relieved and went home. This was my first experience out fighting fires.
Welcome to the CFA!!!
Shoe on the other foot
by Chris Dosser, Molyullah Fire Brigade
(written February 2007)
It’s one thing as a CFA volunteer on the back of a tanker protecting other people’s properties, but a totally different experience when it’s your own little piece of this brown land.
My six or so years with the CFA had given me the knowledge, some skills and the confidence to stay and attempt to protect our property against the threat of a bushfire should that threat arrive. What a summer we have had! That day did arrive!
With a team of friends and family on Thursday 11 January, we started the job of preparing the property in readiness for that fire. Later that evening, we watched as the fire hit a private property. This was an eye opener for some, not having experienced a bushfire first hand and letting them in on what we also were in for.
We continued to prepare on Friday until the time was signalled by the circling of a helicopter to the south of the hop field. There it was! The flames visible through the trees. The time was 4.30pm and we had a long night ahead. We had two private slip-ons and some CFA tankers and, overhead, two marvels in the sky. Our aim was to protect the 50 to 60-year-old hop shed, mainly timber and iron construction, and the house and the water tanks.
The two choppers with a quick turn around from one of the dams made all the difference. They cooled the hot spots, enabled me to keep the fire away from the water tanks and out of the timber close to the back of the hop shed. The helicopters pulled out around 8pm, before nightfall, with the tankers not long after that for a changeover and to assist the fight further down the valley.
Postscript: Got in the way, did it?
Not only was the shoe on the other foot, firewise, but Chris's “other foot” was encased in plaster from heel to knee as a result of a broken ankle sustained while fighting the Loomba fire. Attempting to defend one’s house hampered by an ankle in plastercast isn't easy so, as the flames approached, Chris got out his tool box and cut off his plaster boot!
Chris's two stories were first published in 'Burning Issues', the newsletter of the Molyullah Rural Fire Brigade.
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| Alan Burgess with wife Bev |
by Alan Burgess, Maude Fire Brigade
On 7th of January 1969, I was home from work when the Norlane Tanker went by ringing the truck's warning bell. I grabbed my firefighting gear and followed it to where a grass fire was burning quite fiercely into a stand of trees on the Wooloomanata property in Bacchus Marsh Road, opposite Carrs Road, Anakie.
It was later determined that the fire was caused by combustible debris leaving upswept exhaust from a truck leaving Bacchus Marsh Road and entering Carrs Road.
I left my work vehicle parked safely on the side of the road, got into my gear, and jumped onto the back of the tanker. By this time the fire had entered the treed property, fuelled by a hot north-easterly wind.
With the assistance of several other tankers, we got the fire under control after an hour or so and began blacking out the numerous tree stumps etc, which were still burning over what had become quite a large area. Having received refreshments (including a box of cold beer provided by the owner of the property,) we were sent home.
Gale force winds blew up very early the next day, and by 9am the fire was completely out of control. Our tanker had been dispatched early with a fresh crew after the fire had flared up, and with numerous other tankers we were fighting a losing battle against the fast running fire, which was spotting up to half a mile ahead, soon entering the Lara township. The heat, smoke, and gale force winds rendered communications inoperable, being affected by ionization of the atmosphere caused by the debris, smoke and dust from the fire.
Crews desperately attempted to save houses and property. I was in our First Aid Pumper with the Station Officer and two other crew on the back, and joined in the fray. We managed to put out a balcony fire on one house - it later burnt down. At another premises, we used all of our water to extinguish a fire in the roof, however, by the time we had re-filled and returned to this house, it also was beyond saving.
At this stage, we headed down the road through the thick smoke and flying embers to a house under threat. We proceeded by aiming the spotlight down to the road edging and following it in this manner until we reached the driveway. What we discovered at this address was a pile of corrugated iron on the ground where the homestead had once stood.
By this time the extreme wind had blown a lot of the smoke out over Corio Bay and the devastation began to become apparent. (We later heard that the fire had taken 7 minutes to traverse the 7 miles from Bacchus Marsh Road to the Princes Highway!) We made our way back to the Highway, and slowly headed towards Geelong. A short distance down the road near the telephone repeater station at Avalon Airfield we came across a sight I shall never forget. About half a dozen cars stood in a line completely burnt out.
Overall in the Lara fire, there were 17 deaths, with 43 homes, a church and a school being destroyed along with an unknown number of outbuildings and stock.
On that day in 1969 when temperatures soared to 103 degrees, there were 230 fires with 31 exceeding 40 hectares and 21 considered to be of major proportions. A total of 22 people perished, 230 homes and 21 other buildings were destroyed along with more than 12,000 stock. The total area burnt was approximately 323,750 hectares.
How I joined CFA
“I lived several houses up from Station Street where the Norlane Fire Station was located. In the event of a fire, a wailing siren summoned volunteer firemen to attend these premises, then the fire truck with its clanging bell would head off to the incident This occurred at all hours of the day and night.
Waiting for a bus one morning at the bus stop situated outside the fire station, I complained to the Station Officer, who was polishing the bell on one of the trucks, regarding my sleep deprivation due to the infernal noise.
“You look like a fit young man!” he said. (I was playing football for the North Shore Football Club at the time.) “Seeing as you’re awake anyway, why don’t you join?” Thus began my life-long involvement with the CFA!
Evening brigade meetings were held on the first Tuesday of each month, with training on the remaining three Tuesday nights. Should a fifth Tuesday fall in the month, a games night was conducted.
After a probationary period, I became a permanent member allowed to attend call-outs and also part of the brigade’s running team. Over the years I attended fires of all descriptions and many demos – fire demonstration competitions between other brigades.
We did a lot of block clearing by either burning off or slashing and, with other money gained through social activities, built our own recreational building with a full-sized billiard table and other facilities. We even bought our own bus to convey us to demos and other events.
There were also many balls and other mixed family events. The children particularly looked forward to the arrival of Santa on the back of the fire truck at the Christmas functions.
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