According to Cardinia mayor Bill Ronald, the CFA’s volunteer firefighters are the ‘Australians of the Year’. The volunteers chatted to Gazette journalist Sarah Schwager after returning from bushfires near Anakie and Erica.
LOCAL volunteer firefighters are Australians of the Year not just this year but every year, according to Cardinia mayor Bill Ronald.
This sentiment was reflected in recent bushfires around country Victoria, in which hundreds of firefighters volunteered their time, foregoing paid work and risking their lives.
Country Fire Authority (CFA) crews from Pakenham, Cockatoo, Officer, Nar Nar Goon, Berwick, Gembrook, Pakenham Upper and Upper Beaconsfield all volunteered their time in the fires, while those left behind helped fight local fires as the heat set off sparks in homes and on land around Cardinia.
Two of those volunteers who helped with the Anakie bushfires were Bunyip CFA Captain Glen Coster and his son Stuart.
Glen, who has been involved with the CFA for 28 years, said his crew was sent to the north of Anakie on afternoon of Sunday, 22 January.
“We were there mainly for asset protection and backburning operations under the guidance of the DSE (Department of Sustainability and Environment),” he said.
Stuart, 17, has been in the CFA’s senior service for less than a year, and said while it was not the first fire he had attended, it was his first strike team.
But he said he had not been nervous about the experience.
“It wasn’t scary at all, ” Stuart said. “We saw a dead pig. That was about as gory as it got.”
Upper Beaconsfield brigade members Liz and Neil Brandie were set up at Newborough, the staging area for the Moondarra fires.
The couple has been volunteering since 2002 after moving into the area in 2000.
Neil said they decided to become CFA volunteers because they lived in the bush and he had been in the Edithvale brigade for five years from the age of 16.
He said he and Liz had seen numerous local fires but this was his first strike team and Liz’s third.
The couple went to the area to conduct control burns to protect Yallourn North.
“By the time we got there the rain set in and we couldn’t burn it,” Neil said.
Instead, they supplied water and Gatorade to other firefighters and cleaned and maintained the rest area.
“The cinder on the floor was that thick it was black,” Liz said.
Narre Warren CFA volunteer Tim Wright said he had patrolled the fire fronts at Erica and Moondarra for three days, mainly for asset protection.
“We didn’t see much damage to houses. There was a lot of bush burnt, though,” he said.
Tim said it had been an amazing experience, with about 80 fire trucks in the area at any one time, including vehicles from New South Wales and Tasmania.
“We patrolled down near the dam and pine plantation,” he said.
“There would have been disaster if the fire had reached the plantation.”
