By Bronwyn Hastings

A parliamentary inquiry into the state’s summer fires called witnesses to January’s Grass Flat fire to a hearing last week, hosted by the Legislative Council Environment and Planning Committee. 

The inquiry will make recommendations to the government in areas including preparation and planning, causes and circumstances, funded equipment and appliances, emergency response, resilience of critical services and infrastructure, and impacts on business, environment and of misinformation.

At Quantong community centre – itself a near miss during the fire – committee chair and Member for Southern Metropolitan Region Ryan Batchelor sat with members John Berger, Southern Metropolitan Region; Sarah Mansfield and Jacinta Ermacora, Western Victoria; Wendy Lovell, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell and Gaelle Broad, Northern Victoria; and Melina Bath, Eastern Victoria.

Witnesses included registered speakers: Horsham Rural City Council Mayor Brian Klowss and infrastructure director John Martin; CFA volunteers Natimuk Fire Brigade captain David Sudholz and Natimuk group officer Steven Meyer; West Wimmera Health Service’s Natimuk Aged Care director of nursing David Schultz and quality and safety executive director Darren Welsh; Natimuk and District Gymnastic Club head coach Lynette Morrow; CFA volunteer Ivan Smith; and West Wimmera Action Group treasurer Marty Colbert.

The open microphone session included: CFA vegetation officer Joshua Hodges; CFA volunteer Kevin Bolwell; Peter Flinn; Andrew Colbert; Fire Rescue Victoria professional firefighter Matt Morgan; Ross Johns; Trevor Puls; John Bennett; Brad Marson; and Lester Mayberry.

Understood to have started by a private power line, January 9’s fire destroyed 17 homes as it burnt across 8372 hectares.

Mr Klowss was also a victim of the fire; he said 20 per cent of the fire was on his farming land. 

“The fire was reported just before 1pm, seven kilometres away from home, and it was there within 15 minutes,” he said.

“We had our private units and met the fire about six kilometres away. We realised we couldn’t do anything – we had two other people on our side of the fire. We went around and got people out of their houses. 

“We had a fairly close shave with one elderly resident – by the time we got him out the house was on fire. 

“Our next-door neighbour, who was with us, watched his house burn to the ground in front of him.”

Mr Klowss said in the first 15 minutes of the fire, resources were scarce.

“Private units were on scene fast and they were a huge benefit to the community in the early stages,” he said.

“In that first 15 minutes the fire would have been 200 metres long, and it was a long narrow strip. 

“The wind changed, it went slightly northerly, and created a front to the south, in excess of a kilometre wide, then the wind went around more westerly, which pushed it back to the north, and created a huge fire front. 

“It all happened in front of us; our house was in front of that.”

Mr Klowss said more private units arrived and went ahead of the fire to move livestock and evacuate houses in the fire’s path.

“That’s a bit of an overview of what happened in the first 45 minutes,” he said.

“As the mayor, when we got there, I actually called our CEO and said, ‘you have to evacuate Natimuk’, and that was one of the last phone calls we had, because communications went down.”

Private units

Natimuk group officer and 43-year CFA volunteer Steven Meyer also responded in a private unit.

He said he originally used a combination of CFA radio, UHF and mobile phone to communicate with other firefighters and personnel, until power outages caused a communications failure.

“This severely limited our ability to co-ordinate CFA assets,” he said.

“I believe the electrician who maintains the Mt Arapiles tower is from Horsham, and was not able to get to the generators as the road was closed.

“The fire was so large and fast, it was nothing like I have ever experienced in all my CFA life – although considering the catastrophic fire conditions, two CFA tankers experiencing burnovers, and one member sustaining minor injuries, there were no lives lost. 

“Without all involved in fighting this fire, it would most likely have impacted the Horsham area.”

Mr Sudholz said without private units, CFA would not cope.

“In all my experience with fires in this area, they are usually stopped and contained by private units,” he said.

“The CFA usually turns up to then start co-
ordinating and blacking out pretty much, so private units are really, really essential.”

Bunkering down

West Wimmera Health Service’s Natimuk Aged Care Home director of nursing David Schultz maintained constant contact with staff during the fire while working from his Kingston SE home.

He said within 15 minutes of the initial Vic
Emergency alert, the aged-care home was surrounded by dense smoke.

“At the time, there were 59 people in the building – 36 residents, 20 staff, two visitors and a local man who had to abandon his house,” he said.

“The dense smoke prevented people in the building from seeing the flames outside, but it also set off the fire alarms and automatically unlocked all the secure doors, which we did not know how to override at the time.”

Mr Schultz said staff moved the residents and visitors into a safer part of the building as fire encroached on two sides: in the back yard of the house next door and into the trees and paddocks at the back of the building. 

“There were embers falling all around, igniting spot-fires in the gardens of the aged-care home,” he said.

“We’ve been asked repeatedly to explain why we didn’t evacuate. The fire approached very rapidly and burned fiercely in close proximity to the building, and it would have placed the residents in far greater danger to take them outside. 

“The building itself is most likely the safest place in Natimuk in the event of fire. It has six fire zones within the building, protected by fire resistant walls and doors, and it has a sprinkler system, which automatically activates if a fire should break out, which is supported by two very large firewater tanks. 

“Evacuation would have required us to organise buses, at least some equipped for wheelchairs, and at least six of our residents would require an ambulance to take them away – it
would have taken hours.”

The aged-care home’s generator started automatically when mains power was lost and ran uninterrupted until power was restored two days later.

Managing fuel

Natimuk Group volunteer and District 17 vegetation-management officer Joshua Hodges said the group was the only one in District 17 to complete any roadside burning this financial year.

“Sixteen treatments were nominated onto the joint fuel management program for Natimuk group, and of those, five treatments were completed this year – four burns and one slashing treatment,” he said.

“That is a testament to the work that our volunteers did, in committing some resourcing to some treatment burning, which is fantastic.”

Dr Hodges said availability and appropriate weather were major factors in being able to complete treatments.

CFA life member, Dunkeld Fire Brigade member and Grampians Asset Protection Group secretary Peter Flinn said fuel was the only influence people had over fire.

“Mild fuel reduction burning, carefully controlled, is a vital tool, both in our forests and our roadsides – it has been used in Australia since ancient times, and we need more of it,” he said.

“We all know what bad fire is, we saw it run riot last summer, we saw it devastate the Grampians and the Little Desert just over a year ago, as well as the death and destruction wreaked on the many so-called black days, as far back as 1851. 

“But it seems we never learned. A key recommendation from the 2009 Black Saturday Royal Commission that a minimum of five per cent of Victoria’s public land be fuel reduced each year, was rejected by the government. 

“Instead, we have safer together policy, a real misnomer. It’s not working. 

“Similarly, the vital and time-
honoured practice of roadside fire breaks, burnt annually and efficiently by CFA volunteer brigades to protect their communities, has also become much more difficult.” 

Mr Flinn said fires would always start, whether by lightning, accident or carelessness, but their intensity could be reduced.

“Whisps of white smoke are preferable to black smoke and red skies in mid-summer,” he said.

Mr Martin said Wimmera Southern Mallee Council Alliance’s submission to the inquiry outlined the inflexibility of some groups and bodies.

“The Department of Transport and Planning seems to be less able to be flexible to adjust to variable seasonal conditions,” he said.

“This spring started out dry, then it was wet in November, which led to more growth and regrowth. 

“Certainly, at council, we adjust our programs to meet those variable seasonal conditions. That same level of flexibility doesn’t appear to be there for some other organisations. 

“Budgets are tight, I get that, but we need to focus on what the priorities are.” 

Mr Klowss said spraying roadsides with a residual chemical could create wider breaks.

“Rather than coming back to slash it two or three times, a residual chemical might turn that three-metre-wide country road into a six-metre-wide road, or an eight-metre-wide road,” he said.

“You can create fire breaks there, with simple management tools.” 

West Wimmera Action Group, WWAG, treasurer Marty Colbert said a previous commission showed every dollar spent on fire prevention saved $11 in damage.

“It’s a no-brainer,” he said.

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