Delburn bushfires – 2009.

It’s been 15 years since the catastrophic Black Saturday bushfires on 7 February 2009, with the loss of 173 lives, and which devastated townships such as Marysville, Kinglake, Narbethong, Flowerdale and Strathewen.

But just over a week before, on Wednesday 28 and Thursday 29 January, there were six deliberately lit blazes south of Morwell near the townships of Yinnar, Mirboo North and Boolarra. Police later charged a man with arson.

While three of these fires were quickly extinguished by the CFA, the other three at Ashfords Road, Creamery Road and Lyrebird Walk developed, and ultimately merged to become the Delburn Complex.

The incident was primarily run by the CFA, with Kevin Pettit as the Level 2 Incident Controller.  Because of the plantations under threat, Kevin initially operated out of the Hancock Victorian Plantations (HVP) offices at Churchill, with the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) in support, both on the ground and in the air with a large fleet of fixed wing firebombers and helicopters operating out of the Latrobe Valley.

A Level 3 Incident Control Centre (ICC) was later established at Traralgon on Thursday 29 January as the fire complexity and size escalated with Mike Owen appointed the CFA Incident Controller.

When I arrived at work on Friday morning, I was immediately deployed to conduct a series of public meetings about the fires. I had wrangled large angry mobs previously during the 2006-07 alpine bushfires so was very familiar with the unique challenges. I grabbed some maps and other stuff and together with a CFA presenter from Warragul, we went to meetings at Boolarra, Mirboo North, Yinnar and Churchill.

Over 1000 people attended the community meetings but the most difficult was at Boolarra where about 300 residents were under direct threat and were very frightened.

During the meetings people were advised that given the weather conditions on Friday and the likely fire progression, leaving early may be their best option.  At the time the CFA doctrine was to “stay and defend” rather than “leave early”.

Residents were also told that it was very unlikely that they would get either CFA or DSE trucks to protect their homes and there may not be time to issue a warning of the fire entering the township.

I remember speaking with the wife of a work colleague and friend after the Boolarra meeting. They lived on a hillside above the town on Piggery Road, and she asked me what she should do. I advised her to leave the house, particularly because she was on her own and her husband was on a CFA truck. Sadly, their home burned down later that night and I felt dreadful. I was troubled for a very long time and wondered if I had given her the right guidance. But given what happened a week later during Black Saturday at Churchill my solace was, they were both safe and alive.

A former Captain of the Boolarra CFA brigade attended the meeting and made some inflammatory and alarmist remarks. He also said he would ring the CFA siren as a community warning which was against CFA policy at the time.

The public meeting at Boolarra was filmed and a TV news story was aired weeks later when the Royal Commission hearings were being held. The journalist selectively used parts of the footage to create a misleading impression that residents had not been adequately advised or clearly warned of the approaching danger. DSE lawyers considered taking action because this was clearly false as the Royal Commission later acknowledged in its findings.

The main fire activity increased as predicted during Friday when the temperature reached 42 degrees with low humidity and moderate winds. The FFDI reached 52 (extreme). The fire area nearly tripled from 2,150 ha just before dawn, to approximately 5,750 ha close to midnight.

The final fire area was 6,350 ha with approximately 60% in HVP plantations, and 44 houses were lost. Importantly, no one died.

There were more public meetings over the weekend with swelling crowds. Local MP, Peter Ryan, accompanied me on Saturday.

It was also during the Delburn fires that the famous image of Sam the Koala, being given a drink of water by CFA firefighter Davide Tree, was taken by Mark Pardew from DSE. Sam became an international media star and was taken into care by Colleen Wood at Erica. There is a monument to Sam at Mirboo North.

The Delburn fires were contained by Tuesday 3 February but a large contingent of CFA, HVP and DSE crews remained on the ground and in the IMT, for blackout and patrol.

As it later turned out, crews and the IMT at Traralgon were well positioned to respond quickly when the Black Saturday bushfires started at Churchill on 7 February.

However, the story of the fires at Delburn were overshadowed and somewhat forgotten by these other more catastrophic events.

http://royalcommission.vic.gov.au/Finaldocuments/volume-1/HR/VBRC_Vol1_Chapter03_HR.pdf