By Mikayla van Loon
As a large grassfire was breaking out in Flowerdale on Tuesday afternoon, CFA crew members from Mooroolbark and Wonga Park were gearing up to respond.
With the call out going to strike team 1378, the initial response saw four members from each brigade deployed, assisting on the ground, into the night.
Mooroolbark CFA spokesperson Phil Cuthbert said members had linked up with other brigades, like those from the Maroondah group, to form a larger strike team to work on asset protection.
“They were heavily involved in some asset protection of between six to eight homes, so working through the night, basically protecting houses, sheds, farming equipment and so forth,” he said.
“They’ve been working hard. The fire was moving a bit in the evening as well, which is a bit unusual.”
Normally fires would calm significantly during the night because of added moisture in the air but Tuesday night’s conditions meant firefighters were working harder than would usually be expected.
“It certainly wasn’t as strong as it was during the day, that’s for sure but being in grassland and scrub land, it was still moving reasonably well in the evening,” Mr Cuthbert said.
Reports from firefighters on the ground suggested that while the fire started as a low lying grassfire it has spread further upwards to scrub and bushland, as well as potentially into pine areas.
With the fire reaching close to 800 hectares of land, more than 100 firefighters had been deployed by Thursday 23 February, along with six helicopters supporting from the air.
Wonga Park CFA captain Aaron Farr said his brigade members have assisted in a number of tasks including backburning, firefighting and welfare checks but primarily the brigade’s specialist appliance was needed in Flowerdale.
“It’s a specialist appliance called a ‘big fill’ and it’s ultimately used to fill other vehicles with water,” he said.
“While we have a tanker, it was this vehicle that the CFA called for at the time as part of strike team 1378.”
Smoke could be smelt across the region on Thursday as firefighters used the opportunity of ideal conditions to undertake back burning operations.
Wonga Park volunteers were also heavily involved in supporting the protection of a rather large property on Spring Valley Road, which Mr Farr said was “a little bit hairy” for a moment there.
Mr Farr and Mr Cuthbert said firefighters were hoping to have the grassfire under control by Thursday evening but were concerned about what warm and windy weather would bring on Friday 24 February.
“[Friday] will be a day of concern. They’re expecting winds to pick up a little bit…they’re working very hard to contain it this evening (23 Feb),” Mr Cuthbert said.
“Given the sheer size of it, it’s now nearing 800 hectares, so even with milder days over the weekend, mid 20s and so forth, there’s still going to be a lot of work in blacking out and keeping it contained.”
Both brigades are prepared to send another rotation of members to the fire site on Saturday to continue the efforts over the weekend.
“We prepare when we know bad weather is coming up, so we make an effort to do a call out to our membership to see who’s available for strike teams,” Mr Cuthbert said.
“But we’ve also got to balance who’s around locally to still respond to local calls. So we do that in the days leading up so when we get the call, like we did on Tuesday, it’s not a surprise to us.”
As the first major fire of the 2023 season, Mr Farr said it’s a reminder to those in bush and grass fire prone areas that it needn’t be an extreme or catastrophic fire danger day for fires to break out.
“Until there’s a downpour of rain, people need to be vigilant, have a bushfire plan in place, leave early and be prepared all year round,” he said.
This sentiment was echoed by Mr Cuthbert, encouraging people to stay weary of what is still to come throughout March.
“The Flowerdale fire is a real timely reminder that summer hasn’t finished and we’ve still got a number of weeks ahead of us where we can expect reasonable fire danger conditions to exist.
“So we need people to take heed of what’s happening out there and be conscious of their planning.”
For the residents of Flowerdale and surrounding areas, despite not having a fire in the area since Black Saturday 14 years ago, it would still be triggering memories of that horrific blaze.
“Since the ‘19- 20 season, we’ve had a reasonably benign fire season. For us, out our neck of the woods, this is one of the bigger events for the last couple of years,” Mr Cuthbert said.
“For our community and particularly for the Flowerdale community it’s bringing back a lot of memories from Black Saturday because they were obviously heavily impacted then.”
