No way out

By Elizabeth Hart
TENSIONS are soaring in Harkaway as residents demand the Casey Council build and maintain a fire escape route.
At a packed meeting at the public hall on Monday last week, residents began working on a safety strategy in the event of another catastrophe like Black Saturday or Ash Wednesday.
They want the council to either upgrade and maintain an old track from Baker Road to Old Coach Road, the original horse track to the town, as an emergency exit, or to provide other escape routes such as horse trails or access through private land by agreement.
Flames encircled the town on black Saturday, claiming a house on the outskirts, while police closed off major exits at King, Robinson, and Harkaway roads, directing fleeing vehicles to the disused Old Coach Road track, the only other escape route from the town in an emergency. Confusion and controversy has surrounded the track since the Country Fire Authority two fire seasons ago claimed it as an access for emergency vehicles only, resident Warrick Glendenning said.
Another resident, Bill Peeler, said public safety was at risk and the authorities had failed in their duty of care to the people of Harkaway, because there was no escape in emergency.
The town is cautious about declaring the track an emergency route in its present condition.
It could be perilous, Mr Glendenning says, because a single vehicle breakdown in a traffic bank-up could trap all vehicles.
“We don’t want to advocate a dangerous situation. But there is agreement that something has to be done.”
“The people need clarity. We need to know once and for all who has control over access to the track.”
Originally known as the glue pot because horses would become bogged at the lowest point where it crossed Grassmere Creek, the track became redundant as other road systems around the town developed.
Then after Ash Wednesday in 1983, money from the council funded an upgrade and an 18-tonne capacity concrete and steel bridge over the creek, with the intention of the track becoming an emergency exit.
The project was completed within a year.
Gates at both ends prevented access to motor cycles and other unwelcome vehicles, and each fire season the council unlocked the gates.
“For 25 years, people believed it was an escape route,” Mr Glendenning said.
“Now it is not.”
Fear of entrapment overrode notions of escape, and the Country Fire Authority in a letter drop advised residents that the track was no longer an emergency exit but an access for CFA vehicles.
“I objected,” Mr Glendenning said this week.
“We recognise though that unless the track is properly maintained it could be dangerous in a disaster.”
Mr Peeler says there would have been no other way out had the fire on 7 February engulfed the town.
“We were within a road’s width of becoming another Kinglake,” he said.
“It would have been the only escape route for many Harkaway residents.”
City of Casey mayor Geoff Ablett chaired last week’s public meeting, which elected a committee of six to work with Casey Council on safety strategies, including the setting up of more escape routes from the town.
The committee will report back to the community in two months.