It was during the war that the nation relied on timber more than ever before.  Some of the longest spans and most diverse timber structures were built in Australian history during this period.

As the first American forces arrived in Australia in 1942 the Federal Government began to recognise that timber was an essential war material. The “Office of the Controller of Timber” was established, and all the timber resources of the nation were placed under its direct control.

Steel was redirected to other defence needs and timber became the focus for both large and small buildings.

To coordinate the massive war construction program, the Government established the Allied Works Council (AWC) and, from 26 February 1942, it assumed control for all defence projects for the Allied Armies. It was based in Melbourne.

Australian timber was used to hurriedly build a number of large aircraft hangers. The structural layout of these buildings was probably derived from a 1941 US Army Air Corps design for a steel hangar spanning 122 foot  This was adapted as a segmented curved roof built from unseasoned hardwood trusses instead of steel.

Six 130-foot hangars and two 96-foot hangars were built at Tocumwal in NSW. A further 130-foot hangar and four 96-foot hangars were constructed at Charleville in QLD while two 96-foot hangars were built at Garbutt Airport at Townsville. Another 96-foot hangar was erected at Maylands in WA and one with a 130-foot span.

At the Werribee Satellite Aerodrome, four hangers were built with 96-foot spans and one at 130-foot. Two of the five original aircraft hangars at Werribee remain. One is currently used for the B-24 Liberator restoration, and the other is being relocated.

Gregory Nolan (1994). The forgotten long span timber structures of Australia. Master of Architecture Thesis. University of Tasmania.

https://figshare.utas.edu.au/articles/thesis/The_forgotten_long_span_timber_structures_of_Australia_/23206388

Photos: NAA

The Stretton Royal Commission into the 1939 bushfires considered in detail the use of bushfire dugouts. The report noted –

After the 1926 fires, the question of insisting upon the installation of dugouts at mills for protection of the millworkers was raised by the Forests Commission. The Commission was  divided in opinion and the matter lapsed. Again, after the 1932 fires, the question was revived. In May 1932, an engineer’s report upon the desirability of dugouts and on their construction was submitted to the Commission. Further consideration was given the matter and, on the 14^th November 1932, the following minute was placed on the file:—

“Commission Decision – All sawmillers to construct effective dugouts in the close vicinity of all sawmills, particulars of such to be forwarded to the Commission”.

The Judge harshly criticised the Commission when he noted:-

Having made its considered decision, the Commission at no time thereafter took any steps to compel the observance of the condition. Instead, for several years, it wrote to millers “strongly advising” and “urging” the dugouts be instituted. In many cases the advice was ignored, and no dugout was constructed. In no case was even a threat of coercion made against the recalcitrant miller.

Many of the sawmillers objected strongly at the Stretton hearings to the compulsory installation of dugouts because of the expense. They objected even more strongly to constructing dugouts at steam winch sites because of their temporary nature.

The Forests Commission explained at the Stretton hearings that it had believed in dugouts as safeguards; that, in the words of the Chairman, A. V. Galbraith, their “belief had been intense”; that it continued to believe in them; but that it had feared it might be liable if people were asphyxiated in them; that it had sought advice of the Crown Solicitor on this point and had been advised that it would not be liable; that it had continued to “urge” the millers to install dugouts; that its fear of causing asphyxiation had remained until the 1939 fires proved it to be groundless.

But well-constructed dugouts had saved the lives of many sawmill workers and their families during the 1939 bushfires. In some locations, they had proved fatal.

Ironically at Yelland’s mill near Matlock, 26 people were saved because they did not use the dugout, which was roughly constructed above ground of corrugated iron and which stood among standing timber. They instead sheltered in a brick house which was near another wooden building, which soon caught fire, as did a truck outside along with 24 drums of fuel and oil which exploded.

The brick building then also caught alight and the ceiling began to cave in, so the people inside climbed through a window and ran past the burning truck to an area missed by the fire. The sawmill chef, Mrs Vera Maynard, was caught by the flames and burned to death in the house.

Whereas at the nearby Fitzpatrick’s mill, 16 people burned to death because there was no dugout available. Scrub came right up to the borders of mill. Some men tried to find shelter behind the brickwork of the boiler house, but they were driven out by the flames.  Others ran to the sawdust heap, thinking it would protect them from the searing heat, but their bodies were later found where they had tried to burrow into it.

The eight mill horses, still harnessed, were caught by the flames and died in their stalls.

One man jumped into an elevated water tank and is often said to have boiled. Other bodies were found in the bush about three-quarters of a mile away as they tried to run. Only George Sellars survived by wrapping himself in a wet blanket.

The two mills were not considered by their owners to be particularly vulnerable, and no worthwhile precautions had been undertaken for the safety of those who worked there.

It’s even reported that Forests Commission Officers, Finton Gerraty and  Roly Parke, didn’t think the Matlock forests would burn as they did, and besides, there was a quarry nearby which offered some  protection for the mill workers. They also had reservations about their legal power to insist on the owners’ building dugouts.

Questions of design of dugouts were debated at the hearings including ventilation, air purification, location, design (for example whether tunnel, or tunnel with cross chamber, or in flat country, shaft and drive), baffles for both for air and smoke, storage of water inside dugouts, supply of medicaments (for example for prevention or relief of temporary blindness and inflammation of the eyes), water sprays and restoratives; the direction in which the entrance to the dugout should face; the question of exposed timbers and sheet iron; and the various other suggestions which appear in the transcript of evidence.

The final recommendations of the Stretton Royal Commission included –

• The construction of dugouts at all mill settlements, and at winches during the fire danger season, should be compulsory.
• The design of the dugout, despite the test to which dugouts were subjected by the fires of January 1939, is a matter for the most careful consideration, of which only technicians are capable.
• It should be mandatory that an area of six chains in diameter, having as its centre the entrance to the dugout, should be kept clear of all trees and scrub, buildings, and material of whatsoever kind. Stores of petrol and oil, stacks of firewood and all other stores of inflammable material should be kept at such considerable distance from the dugout entrance as the State Fire Authority may decide.

And so it came to pass, the Forests Act was amended in December 1939 and dugouts became mandatory for those few sawmills that remained in forest after the 1939 fires. Many remote logging coupes and FCV roading camps also had dugouts installed.

Penalties applied for non-compliance, and the local District Forester was required to make annual pre-season inspections of all dugouts on State forests and those within the Fire Protected Area (FPA). Some were built privately on private land.

Most were primitive construction with a log or corrugated iron roof covered with earth. A hessian bag often hung at the entrance to keep the heat and smoke out. But they were dark and damp with snakes and other creepy crawlies often lurking inside.

By 1940-41, there were 19 new dugouts constructed by the Commission and a further 128 by forest licensees. Ten years later there were 8 new Commission dugouts and 21 new ones built by other interests. By 1960-61 the rate of new builds was declining but the Commission still managed 103 dugouts, while 127 were looked after by others. 

However, as the forest road network improved and gave all-weather access to modern two-wheel-drive vehicles, the reliance on dugouts receded.

In 1970, the Commission built a reinforced precast concrete dugout near Powelltown to house 30 people. But the number of dugouts maintained by the Commission had fallen to 61 with another 73 by others.

According to the Forests Commission’s final annual report from 1983/84, one additional dugout was built, bringing the total number under maintenance and use to 30, along with another 14 maintained by other parties.

The use of dugouts came back into sharp focus once again after the 2009 Black Saturday Bushfires.

There are still a few remaining in the bush, but I can’t find any current official figures.

Click to access Leonard_Stretton-1939_Bush_Fires_Royal_Commission_Report.pdf

Today marks two years since commercial timber harvesting on Victorian State forests ceased. And it’s been a difficult transition for many.

One of the major consequences has been the loss of experienced machine operators and logging contractors to assist with forest firefighting.

Sawmill workers and logging contractors have always been an integral part of Victoria’s firefighting effort. In fact, of the 71 deaths during the 1939 bushfires, over half were timber workers.

And while they were employed as contractors, they were always considered part of the Forests Commission’s firefighting fraternity.

In addition to the current department’s fleet of tankers, trucks, graders and bulldozers, the firefighting effort is supported by over 400 contractors from across the civil and forestry industries.

If it has tracks or wheels, over 4000 machines are now registered on the DEECA’s “Panel Contracts”.

The Panel Contracts system was developed in Gippsland by logistics wizard, Max Stewart, and being registered on the panel before the fire season ensured contractors were available when needed, prices were agreed, machines met all the safety and insurance requirements, as well as technical standards. But more importantly, they came with the highly skilled people needed to operate them.

Dry firefighting with rakehoes, chainsaws and axes, by its very nature, is hard physical work but an essential skill in these far-flung places with limited access to water. It’s something that had been developed and honed over many decades by the Forests Commission.

I always found that 15-20 metres per-person-per-hour was a good “rule of thumb” for the sustained rate to build and hold a fireline using only hand tools in moderate fuels, but there are lots of things that can speed this up… or slow this down…

A small D4 bulldozer in the hands of a skilled operator could construct about 350 m/hr of control line in moderate fuels provided there wasn’t too much side slope, while a bigger D6 could double that figure.

But a new D6 bulldozer can cost in the vicinity of $750,000, and about $450/hour to operate, so having ready access to such expensive and powerful machines over the summer months was, in effect, “subsidised” because the owners had work in the “off season”.

Tough, ruggedly independent and self-reliant, logging contractors were familiar with working for long periods, both day and night, in remote bush, in steep terrain, in dust, often with only snakes and flies for company.

They also built and maintained many of the roads needed to access the bush. Logging machines were often conveniently located in the bush nearby and could be quickly moved and deployed to the fire edge.

It’s one thing to be able to pull levers and push dirt, but experienced bush contractors were able to safely cut a fireline down a precipitously steep ridge where crews could barely stand upright. They could push over dangerous burning trees which were a threat and then follow up during the recovery period by dextrously clearing roads and rehabilitating control lines with an excavator to minimise soil erosion.

The Caledonia bushfire in 1999 saw the introduction of a new role of Plant Operations Manager (POM) to better support the independent contractors. An initiative of local forester, Geoff Pike, with the support of Peter Broome, Denny Johnson and Mack Berry from Briagolong, they identified and numbered each machine and its crew in the bush and made sure they were looked after with time sheets, fuel, food, support and safety information.

Over the last few years, many logging contractors have sold their machines and businesses and moved on. But many others have wisely diversified into trucking, earth moving, road building, vegetation management such as slashing, mulching and tree lopping.

As time progressed, the cohort of traditional logging contractors across regional Victoria matured and shifted from burley blokes in bluey singlets, with Mack trucks and covered in dust, to professionally run family businesses.

Victoria’s contractor fleet now allows for both a massive surge capacity but also allows for a widening diversity of machines than would not otherwise be available within the Department. 

Increasingly, excavators and large harvesters are being used because they can be deployed into areas with a high safety risk due the dead stags or dry limbs left behind by previous fires. 

Roads, tracks and fire perimeters cannot be fully accessed by ground crews until the tree hazard has been removed.  Many of these machines have come directly from commercial timber harvesting operations.

At the other end of the scale, bobcats or positracks with mulching attachments can nimbly reduce the fire risk posed by the shrub layer – creating a “park-like” break alongside populated areas and roads, as an alternative to, or to complement the treeless slashed breaks. 

The tracked positracks minimises soil disturbance and can operate across much boggier or sandy terrain.  Whilst these machines might not have been used in commercial timber harvesting, increasingly contractors have diversified their fleet, which provides another opportunity to engage their skilled forest operators.

During the transition period of the closure of the timber industry, FFMVic retained many of the displaced logging contractors for firefighting and preparation works, but it’s uncertain what the long-term future may hold.

Either way, these wonderful folks have always been, and will always remain, a vital part of Victoria’s forest firefighting family.

With the generous support of Eucalypt Australia and the Dahl Trust, I have been busy over the last year writing and compiling a free eBook titled “The Working Forests”.

The notion of Working Forests sits at the very heart of traditional forest management and the long-term approach to sustainability. It conjures up an image of a continuous cycle of harvest and renewal, of balance and multiple use of a wide range of environmental, social and economic benefits, while growing, and protecting forests for the future.

This eBook comes in two volumes and aims to capture the story of Victoria’s State Forests from the earliest days of the Colony in the 1800s through to the present.

Hundreds of small, stand-alone snapshots give a glimpse into specific times and events. They draw heavily on the substantial and diverse collection of stories published over a nine-year period on my Facebook page, “Victoria’s Forest and Bushfire Heritage”. The eBook is more a compendium of related stories which attempt to “join-the-dots”, rather than a linear chronicle, so there is some unavoidable duplication.

I’m unashamedly an amateur forest historian and have deliberately attempted to write in an easy-to-read and conversational style, rather than pursue a deeper scholarly work. I also have tried to use neutral language, to remain objective and avoid expressing biased opinions, but that’s for others to judge.

Volume 1 covers the period from colonisation of Victoria through to roughly the end of World War Two, while Volume 2 covers the remaining period to the present. But there are inevitable overlaps with some topics.

It doesn’t delve into Victoria’s rich indigenous past, nor does it cover in any detail the gold mining era and relics in the bush. And I have only touched-on steam sawmills and timber tramways because there are many enthusiast groups such as the Light Railways Research Society of Australia (LSRSA) which have covered this subject matter much better than I ever can.

It has been written from a forester’s perspective and captures the stories of people who worked in the forests, earned a living from them and enjoyed them as a place of recreation.

It’s also a tribute to foresters who managed and protected the State’s forests and plantations over many decades, and critically, worked to save the forest from permanent alienation and loss.

A large part of this document outlines the accumulated wisdom, achievements, planning and preparations undertaken by the Forests Commission Victoria (FCV) to build an effective organisation.

In documenting the history of the forests and the key roles that foresters played as early stewards and advocates for forest conservation and land managers, it taps into networks of retired and practicing foresters, as well as many others.

But there remain significant gaps and sadly many of the key FCV figures are no longer alive or available to give their version of events.

This project is timely and significant because the management of Victoria’s eucalypt forests are at a dramatic turning point. The recent cessation of timber harvesting in Victoria’s public native forest in 2024, is raw and remains controversial, but is at the conclusion of a long and complex backstory – one which needs to be told.

Some have suggested publishing a hardcopy book, but I have never sought to profit from my work and wish to share it freely. The costs of printing so many colour images are prohibitive. Besides, an eBook is easier to skim, search and scroll.

My main hope is to record some of the rich story of Victoria’s State forests and bushfire heritage and place it on the public record within the security of the National Library.

A lot has changed over my 40-year career in forestry but importantly the foresters and the Forests Commission left a strong legacy of tradition, camaraderie and a spirit of innovation which remains deeply embedded in the DNA of the current land management agencies.

Looking back, many things are apparent, like stable leadership, staff having pride in their work, and a strong “can-do culture” of getting the job done, consistently shines through.

There were many “firsts”… and a lot to be proud of…

Thanks once again for your support and encouragement.

Volume 1 – 168 Mb

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19_nbyV8OGIGgwkeMpwj9Hp_lBfItPrXR/view?usp=sharing

Volume 2 – 191 Mb

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PNtvBPwsdWYfleJsBGhHd3rrXGSFWuPi/view?usp=sharing

Email address: theworkingforests@gmail.com

Soil erosion was identified as an emerging problem across rural Victoria almost immediately after the gold rush of the 1850s.

The Royal Commission of 1897-1901 into the destruction and wastage of Victoria’s forests also identified the importance of protecting soils and forested water catchments.

A Sludge Abatement Board was appointed in 1905, charged specifically with the responsibility of controlling the amount of sludge permitted as effluent into streams from mining operations.

In 1917 an Erosion Inquiry Committee was formed by the Minister for Public Works, but little seemed to come from its deliberations.

The State Rivers and Water Supply Commission (SR&WSC) established its own River Erosion and Flood Protection Branch in 1931 to carry out minor river stabilisation works.

As early as 1922, the Forests Commission had taken a strong interest in the protection of soils and water on forested catchments as well as private land. Specialist nurseries at Macedon, Creswick, Mildura and Wail near Horsham grew plants for country landholders to help restore the land.

Soil erosion came into very sharp focus during the droughts of the 1940s across the Wimmera and Mallee deserts where the sand from bare paddocks drifted across railway lines, roads and into irrigation channels. And huge dust storms were common.

In 1930 the Government appointed a sand-drift control committee to examine the problem, but once again it resulted in little action.

The important step came when Charles Tate Clark, Staff Surveyor in the Lands Department, was elected President of the Victorian Institute of Surveyors.

In 1939 he organised a symposium in collaboration with the Institutes of Engineers and of Agricultural Science to examine erosion control.

The symposium ran for four weeks and told a compelling story. Harold Hanslow, for many years a farmer and since 1935 a Commissioner of the SR&WSC was also concerned with the problem of erosion throughout the state and gave a graphic picture of the deterioration of the Mallee.

Removal of the Mallee scrub followed by excessive cultivation was damaging the fragile soil structure, plus the impact of rabbits was having a disastrous effect on the land.

The sand, so readily lost from the farmer’s property, drifted across railway tracks, overflowed roads, and filled up the irrigation channels.

The cost of maintenance works climbed as gangs of men were employed to shovel soil from permanent structures. In at least one case, an irrigation channel was completely abandoned due to sand-drift and another constructed in an entirely new location to replace it.

But the problems in the northwest were only the tip of the iceberg. Laanecoorie Reservoir on the Loddon River had been reduced by 47% of its capacity within 50 years because of siltation.

The Tambo River in East Gippsland had become so gorged with sediment that the new bed was now only a few feet below the rail track of the original trestle bridge.

The recommendations of the symposium were forwarded to the Premier, Albert Dunstan, in 1940 but he immediately put them into a file and forgot all about them. The Melbourne Press which promptly labelled him Albert the Ostrich.

Hanslow set himself two major tasks: to convince Victoria’s farmers to change their methods so as to promote soil conservation, and to persuade the government to pass legislation which would provide a framework for tackling the broader aspects of the matter.

Hanslow was a fiery protagonist and determined to see an erosion control programm instituted. He was also a prominent member of the Country Party and addressed meetings of members throughout the State with the aim of enlisting political support for the scheme which proved very persuasive.

By 1940 the pressure on the Government to do something was increasing, and Dunstan appointed a Cabinet Sub-Committee to examine the problem again. The committee recommended new legislation and appointment of a Board.

Cabinet once again ignored the recommendations. Hanslow was infuriated and wrote a stern letter to “The Countryman” highly critical of the Government. The Editor arranged to withhold publication until Dunstan had seen it and the Premier then threatened to sack Hanslow if he did not withdraw the letter. Hanslow retorted that unless Dunstan undertook to introduce soil conservation legislation the letter would not be withdrawn.

The stage was set and Hanslow retired to the country to await results. After a series of fierce rows, the Premier capitulated and agreed to the passage of legislation on the control of soil erosion.

The Soil Conservation Act 1940 created a Soil Conservation Board of seven members. The Chairman, Harold Greve Strom, was employed fulltime with staff to assist with the work. Beginnings were small but at the end of the first year the Chairman had a staff of three — the Departmental Secretary, a draughtsman and a typist.

In 1940, Hanslow donated a cup for the Mallee farm showing the best application of soil conservation principles.

https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hanslow-harold-10418

If you have ever wondered why Victoria’s bushfire arrangements are the way they are… then look no further than Judge Leonard (Len) Edward Bishop Stretton.

Len was born in 1893 and initially grew up in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick, but from the age of six he had a rural upbringing at Campbellfield, just north of the city.

The family returned to the northern suburbs when his father won Tattersall’s Melbourne Cup sweepstake in 1902.

He was, by his own admission, “born only a lifetime after the settlement of Melbourne” and felt at home with working-class people.

Len attended Moreland State School and University High School at Parkville and later studied law at the University of Melbourne.

He attempted several times to volunteer for military service during World War One but was prevented for medical reasons.

After graduating from University, Stretton practised for ten years as a solicitor and, in 1929, signed the roll as a member of the Victorian Bar. In 1937 he was sworn in as youngest ever County Court Judge.

From 1938, he was involved in the formation of the Workers Compensation Board of Victoria including a role as Chairman.

Stretton conducted several major Royal Commissions, but three in particular shaped the way Victorian forests and bushfire were managed for decades to come.

1. 1939 – Black Friday Bushfires (See: They had not lived long enough).
2. 1944 – Yallourn Fires (See: Formation of the CFA).
3. 1946 – Grazing (See: Maisie Fawcett and Judge Stretton).

Judge Stretton also served as an acting justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria from 1951 but declined an offer to hold the post on a permanent basis.

He was known for his wit and as a champion of the underdog and was noted for harsh sentencing for serious crimes, but his strong sense of social justice in cases before him.

On 31 May 1956, Stretton was appointed Order of St Michael and St George – Companion (CMG) for his role as Chairman of the Victorian Court of General Sessions.

He retired in August 1964 and died in East Melbourne on 16 May 1967, aged 73.

https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stretton-leonard-edward-len-11793

A major fire started at Aberfeldy just near the edge of the Thomson Reservoir at about 11.30 am on Thursday 17 January 2013.

The bush had been severely burnt only 6 years earlier in the Great Divide fires of 2006-07, so the forest had lots of dead trees and had grown back with a thick understory of tall oat grass.

The fire swept through the State forest in the afternoon and through the night under the influence of a strong north-west wind. 

I was on duty as DSE’s Agency Commander when it started and worked through the night trying to figure out what was going on, predict where it was headed, deploying resources from across Gippsland and getting advice messages and warnings out to communities.

I had never seen fire move so fast and so hot during the middle of the night. There were strong upper atmospheric winds, which combined with very dry air, “dragged the fire along” at much higher speed than predicted. At 4 am the fire was moving through the bush at an astonishing 3-5 km per hour and spotting up to 8 km ahead of the front.

A series of infrared linescans and maps prepared by Fire Behaviour Analyst, Greg McCarthy, shows the progress of the fire overnight.

By daybreak, the fire had spread about 35 kilometres towards the south-east with spot fires starting on cleared farmland at Seaton, Dawson and Heyfield.

With the arrival of a south westerly wind change at around 10 am on Friday 18 January, the fire burned an additional 25,000 ha in eight hours towards Coongulla and Lake Glenmaggie. People at Licola were under potential threat.

Twenty-two houses were destroyed as well as a number of sheds and vans at the Glenmaggie caravan park. Sadly, Stanley Hayhurst, died after being found in a burnt-out vehicle.

Some 760 firefighters from DSE, CFA, Parks Victoria and Melbourne Water were deployed, together with 180 appliances, and 23 bulldozers, supported by 13 aircraft.

Over 87,000 ha were burnt, and it took nearly two months to finally control.

Keeping locals out of burnt areas and clear of falling trees was also a major safety issue which always caused grief and angst in the community. They usually found ways around the Police roadblocks we put in place.

Poorly supervised and overzealous shire contractors knocked over far too many burnt trees in my opinion and changed the rural landscape forever.

The subsequent rehabilitation project ran for months into the following spring.

Hundreds of kilometres of fences were lost and the new government fences policy, which I wrote, that provided 50% of the costs of materials to landholders for a replacement fence was implemented for the first time.

There was a subsequent court case, and Grahame Code, who admitted burning papers on his Aberfeldy property, was charged with recklessly causing a bushfire. But this charge was later dropped, and he was found guilty of leaving a fire without taking all reasonable precaution to prevent it spreading.

I worked back-to-back 14-hour shifts for weeks without a break in Traralgon and Heyfield and was caught up in endless meetings, briefings, tours for dignitaries and teleconferences.  I was tired and all I wanted to do was go home and sleep.

Our house was full of soot and ash like it had been during Black Saturday and I didn’t have time to clean up the mess, mow lawns or spend time with my family.

Then more fires near Mt Hotham came over the Great Divide into Swifts Creek.

Only a week after the Delburn bushfires, on 7 February, the devastating Black Saturday bushfires broke out.

All the staff were placed on early standby in the Traralgon ICC with the expectation of it being a bad fire day. The morning was ominously calm and there was even a slight dew on the car when I left home.

But as the day progressed, all-time record temperatures were being reached. Melbourne hit 46.4°C, the hottest temperature ever recorded in an Australian capital city and humidity levels dropped to as low as 6%.

The McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) reached unprecedented levels, ranging from 120 to over 200. This was higher than the fire weather conditions experienced on Black Friday in 1939 and Ash Wednesday in 1983.

Nothing happened until around 1.30pm when the fires at Churchill and others north of Melbourne at Marysville and Kinglake took off.

We could see the smoke plume from our office windows at Traralgon. It was huge and boiling up over the Strzelecki’s and heading straight towards Yarram.

It was crazy for the rest of the day, trying to work out where the fire was, where people and crews were, aircraft movements, firebombing, what the weather was doing, predicting fire behaviour and which communities were under threat and so on.

But there was nothing much anybody could do to stop the fire, so our main focus was on the fire spotting over the main ridge into Yarram and warning communities.

The overwhelming majority of the fire activity occurred between midday and about 6pm when wind speed and temperature were at their highest and humidity at its lowest.

The wind direction changed strongly later in the evening with the SW change, and the fire leaped across small towns in the hills south of Traralgon.

The fire behaved in a way I hadn’t seen since Ash Wednesday in 1983. It spotted great distances and “surfed” its way from hilltop to hilltop, then burnt down into the valleys below. People who were in the way were suddenly surrounded by fire on all sides and had no chance of escape.

At Callignee, south of Traralgon, 57 of its 61 homes were destroyed and 11 people died that night. About 500 evacuees sheltered at an emergency centre established in a theatre in Traralgon.

Fire Progression Maps

The Premier, Daniel Andrews, announced in Parliament on 23 May 2023 that commercial harvesting of native State forests would end on 1 January 2024.

After the announcement, FFMVic stated that harvesting and haulage contractors would remain engaged by VicForests until 30 June 2024 and continue to support the fuel-reduction burning program.

VicForests Community Forest licensees (firewood etc.) could also continue to cut until 30 June 2024.

But then on 5 January 2024, VicForests instructed all its Community Forestry licensees that they had only a month left, and that operations were to cease on Monday 5 February.

Allegedly, the date was brought forward by five months because it was feared that conservation groups, who were taking court action against VicForests, were about to launch additional legal action against individual licensees as well.

Geoff Evans grew up in Stawell and graduated from the Victorian School of Forestry at Creswick in 1971.

On leaving Creswick he was posted at Toolangi and assisted in managing the 1939 ash regrowth thinning program.

After completing a forestry degree at Melbourne University, Geoff then moved to Forrest in 1975 to supervise logging and regeneration operations on the Otway Ridge.

In 1978, he was transferred to Powelltown as the Assistant District Forester, responsible for fire protection and forest operations. He was also responsible, along with others, for building the iconic “Walk Into History”.

In 1981, Geoff moved to Horsham as the Fire Protection Planning Officer for Western Victoria, but on the formation of CFL in 1984 he secured the new role as the Assistant Regional Manager Operations (ARM-OPS) for the Horsham Region.

In 1985, he was accredited as one of the first Level 3 Fire Controllers, a position he maintained for 26 years. Geoff went to America in 2000 as part of the first international fire deployment and was awarded the prestigious Australian Fire Service Medal (AFSM) in 2004.

Following more restructures in 1993, Geoff was appointed Senior Forester and Fire Management Officer at Horsham.

Geoff retired in 2011 and applied for commercial C License to cut firewood in the Cherrypool State Forest  45kms South of Horsham.

Over his 13 years of thinning Redgum regrowth, Geoff cut an average of 20m3 firewood per month over an 8-month season, which began each October. His best-ever month was 69m3, but in the rush of his last four weeks before the closure, he and his family managed to cut a massive 175 m3.

Following the early shutdown, VicForests held a “wake” for all its community forestry licensees across Victoria at Beaufort on 5 April 2024. Prior to the event the VicForests supervisors had got together and come up with a few awards and Geoff was presented with the “Most Consistent Cutter” award.

At the “wake” it also emerged that Geoff Evans had felled the very last commercially harvested tree on State forest on the morning of 5 February 2024.  The tree was a Red Gum on his firewood coupe in the Cherrypool State forest.

It’s ironic that the honour fell (pun intended) to such a notable Victorian forester.

Note – images were taken as screen shots from a video

A fuel reduction burn near Tidal River in the Wilsons Promontory National Park escaped on Friday 1 April 2005.

It was the second time the burn, which had been ignited 12 days earlier in thick tea-tree, had escaped its containment lines, and was now bearing down on the popular campsite.

The burn had been initially lit at 1 pm on Monday March 21, under mild conditions, with an FDI of 3 (low), temperature of 17.4 degrees and east-north-east winds of 11.3  km/h, with gusts up to 29. The burn was not completely extinguished at the end of the day (which is not uncommon with heath fires) and continued to smoulder.

Four days later, on 25 March, the burn escaped its containment lines and crossed the main road into Tidal River, but it was under control quickly within 12 hours.

Fierce winds then saw it flare up again on the following Monday and Tuesday, but within its boundaries. Aircraft and more firefighters were deployed from Gippsland to suppress the flames.

Everything went quiet again for a few days, but then temperatures rose to the high 20s with north-west winds of about 100 km/h, which saw the situation escalate on April Fool’s Day.

Two rangers were rostered that evening to patrol the fire in conjunction with their normal duties. They reported at 9.00 pm that they could see sparks within the perimeter of the burn.

At about 11.00 pm, the duty officer was informed that the fire had spread and jumped the river. The fire quickly crowned under the influence of strong northerly winds with significant spotting in several locations. It was initially reported to be behind the Parks Victoria works depot.

At approximately 11.30 pm, staff activated the warning siren at Tidal River, which only operated for about 3 minutes before cutting out. Attempts to reactivate the siren were unsuccessful. Some 30 minutes had elapsed since residents and visitors first noticed the fire and the activation of the siren.

It was during the Easter school holidays so there was a rushed evacuation of more than 500 visitors from Tidal River to Norman Beach, which took approximately 20-25 minutes.

While the evacuation was underway the incident controller and two Parks staff removed Jet A1 fuel, tractors, boats, and vehicles to an open area.

The CFA at Yanakie was notified via 000 at 11.37 pm and several brigades responded. Four CFA tankers gained entry to the village and were deployed to directly fight the fire threatening the works depot and cabins and to steer the fire away from the residential area.

Police were also notified around 11.30 pm and arrived at the Mt Oberon turn off at approximately 12.20 am

The SES arrived at Norman Beach at 4.30 am and provided hot drinks and blankets to the campers. Between 6.00 am and 7.00 am police authorised the clearance of Norman Beach, allowing evacuees to collect their belongings and leave the Park.

The Premier, Steve Bracks, was one of those evacuated.

The fire swept out of control to the south and east of Tidal River and across the top of Mount Oberon towards the lighthouse at the southern tip of the Prom.

Another 100 people, scattered in campsites at Refuge Cove, Sealers Cove, Waterloo Bay, and the lighthouse were either flown to safety in the Police Helicopter or rescued by boat.

Without vehicle access to the wilderness area, boats, motorbikes and helicopters were used to transport crews and equipment to reach the bushfire in more remote areas.

An epic 18km handtrail was cut through the thick scrub over the next 14 days to contain the northern edge.

Over 6,000 ha, or 13% of the Park was burnt and it was controlled 17 days later. It was the first time the southern part of the Park had been burnt since February 1951.

The escape triggered five separate Government reports including DSE and the Emergency Services Commissioner, Bruce Esplin, who found the burn was poorly planned and inadequately patrolled.

The escape of the burn reignited age-old debates on the merits of fuel reduction burning and there were armchair experts aplenty offering gratuitous advice.

Politicians in Spring Street also joined the “pile-on” and couldn’t help themselves from having a crack from afar. State Opposition Leader, Robert Doyle, questioned how a controlled burn could get out of control, (very funny, ha, ha), while the shadow Minister for Environment, Phil Honeywood, described it as “the height of lunacy” to schedule burns just days before the Easter and school holidays.

Disgruntled holidaymakers didn’t hold back either.

The Minister, John Thwaites, defended the timing, saying autumn was the only time substantial fuel reduction could be undertaken, and that risks could never be eliminated.

Ironically, the aim had been to burn 20 hectares to protect the Tidal River campsite from future bushfires and rejuvenate the heathland vegetation.

But to put things in context, during the season, only 9 of 363 (2.4%) of the burns undertaken by the Department during its autumn burning program escaped control lines, with the one at Wilsons Promontory being the largest in terms of area. Diverting crews and equipment to the Prom disrupted the remainder of Gippsland’s burning program.

With hindsight, the burn had relied too heavily on a fuel moisture differential against the adjoining wet heathland as one of its main control boundaries, rather than a constructed track, but the heathland dried out over subsequent days, allowing the fire to escape.

But significantly, the investigation found that fuel moisture differential measurements were not undertaken along the southern flank as intended.

Emergency Services Commissioner (2005) Examination of prescribed Burning Practices. https://vgls.sdp.sirsidynix.net.au/client/search/asset/1266499

The 12 February 1977 was described as “Black Saturday” as 69 fires broke out across Victoria. Five people were killed and 17 injured as 100 kilometre-an-hour winds drove fires statewide.

Most of the fires appeared to have occurred by power line failures caused by the very strong winds.

Eleven of the major blazes were in the Western District. The historic townships of Cressy and Streatham, west of Ballarat, were destroyed.

The Creswick fire originated at 1320 on farmland near the intersection of Weatherson’s Road and the Campbelltown – Clunes road, just south-west of Glengower.

A person later admitted to police that he carelessly dropped a cigarette into the long grass by the roadside and the fire spread rapidly. He was charged with offences relating to ignition of the fire on a day of Total Fire Ban.

The hot north winds sent the fire in a southerly direction.

CFA units included 49 tankers, while the FCV committed 130 men, 11 tankers, 4 bulldozers, a helicopter and a fixed wing aircraft, plus service staff and equipment.

Importantly, there were two long-distance spotfires which leapfrogged across the parched landscape. The first was near Wheelers Bridge at 1535, then another 10 minutes later at 1545, just north of Creswick near Wrigley’s Road

The map indicates a courageous attempt was made to put in a backburn on West Berry road near Allandale, but the fire slipped around the unburnt edge at 1600.

It was the second spotfire near Wheelers Bridge that raced about 2km in 30 minutes under the influence of the 60 km/hr northerly winds to reach the outskirts of Creswick North near the cemetery at 1610.

The fire swept near the Forestry School and Nursery and threatened the buildings. There were no students in the campus at the time.

The fire travelled a further 10 kilometres south through the bush until 1855, when the wind changed to the south-west.

The fire shape was long and narrow and travelled a total of 30 km. It was generally less than 3 km wide.  Unlike many other fires on the day, it did not significantly break out on its eastern flank with the wind change.

Fourteen houses were destroyed, 6 of them unoccupied, together with 33 sheds and outbuildings. Although there was no loss of life or serious injury, there were several remarkable escapes.

The overall area was 5,300 ha with about 270 ha of pine plantations and 1,272 ha of eucalypt forest damaged, and many old and significant trees were lost.

Alan McArthur from the CSIRO later investigated the fires to understand their behaviour and the rates of spread, as well as the effectiveness of the suppression tactics.

Report of the Board of Inquiry into the occurrence of bush and grass fires in Victoria. https://exposed.net.au/barber.pdf

https://victoriasforestryheritage.org.au/fire-sidebar/major-fires/529-glengower-creswick-fire-1977.html

Howard Loftie Allan Stoney was the first forester in East Gippsland. He was one of the original 16 appointed and took up his position as Inspector in Bairnsdale in 1883, aged 24.

Originally from Bairnsdale, Howard had no forestry experience or training but had worked in the Lands Office at Sale as a Crown Land Bailiff, having first joined the service as a  junior clerk in 1874.

Other appointments included John La Gerche at Creswick, William Code at Heathcote, Thomas Orde at Beaufort, Moses McCann at Sandhurst and Robert Leech, W.F. McNamara, M.F. Hennessy and M. Griffin. There was also Joseph Firth (Macedon), John Blair (You Yangs) and J. H. Love (Gunbower) as plantation officers.

Although the forests of East Gippsland were different, Stoney faced similar problems to the other foresters across the State

His first priority was to stop illegal cutting. In his report for 1883, he noted 15 successful prosecutions for cutting without a licence and the seizure of several lots of wattle bark. The forests were closed to bark stripping at that time as a result of the Wattle Bark Board of Inquiry in 1878.

At Lakes Entrance, bark was used to tan sails and season fishing nets to protect them from decay in the salt water. The industry developed very rapidly and at one stage in 1868, there were 2000 tonnes of bark ready for shipment from Bairnsdale.

Howard also commented in 1883 on the excellent growth of young wattle on the closed areas and the valuable forests near Lakes Entrance and in the Snowy River District. By 1886, Stoney recommended reopening the areas closed to wattle stripping.

But Stoney had problems with court cases. In 1886, when one case was dismissed, the Magistrate suggested that the Crown Lands Department should provide him with legal assistance.

East Gippsland (beyond Bairnsdale) was one of the last places to be settled in Victoria.

The Koo Wee Rup Swamp was a significant barrier, so access to Gippsland was primarily by boat through Lakes Entrance or Port Albert until the arrival of the railways.

Sawmilling boomed in the 1880s coinciding with the construction of railway lines to Heyfield in 1883, Sale in 1887, Bairnsdale in 1888, as well as the Sale─Stratford link in 1888 and Maffra─Briagolong branch line in 1889.

The first record of sleeper-hewing in East Gippsland was from 1887 in the Coongulmerang Reserve near Lindenow.

Many small and itinerant sawmills were built across the Red Gum plains cutting large volumes for bridges and heavy construction, sleepers, as well as wood blocks to pave Melbourne’s roads.

Meanwhile, the Forest Conservator, George Perrin, was at constant loggerheads with the Railways Department over the wasteful cutting of sleepers.  He urged that sleeper hewer(s) should be excluded from the forest and made clear his belief that individuals hewing timber bore the majority of responsibility for the destruction of Victoria’s timber, not sawmillers.

Perrin also believed that sleeper cutters posed a fire risk and he directed Stoney to cease all hewing by November 1897, and that no permits were to be issued in January. Not surprisingly, this was strongly condemned, and the Bairnsdale Advertiser described it as arbitrary and unnecessary, claiming that sleeper cutting did not increase the fire danger; men would be thrown out of work and the railways deprived of sleepers.

By November 1911, the demand for sleepers was particularly strong, with large loads being sent from Bairnsdale with the majority for the Cressy-Maroona line. The construction of the Bairnsdale-Orbost line between 1910 and 1916 also created a substantial demand. Many were cut from the forests adjacent to the new line.

In 1887, Howard forwarded a wide-ranging report detailing the level of sawmilling activity, timber products and their uses. On average, 20 licences for ordinary wood and 12 to 14 for red gum and ironbark were issued monthly.

But the demand for timber collapsed with the onset of the economic depression in the 1890s associated with a post-goldrush hangover, and very few of the mills from the 1880s, survived.

In 1889, Stoney was finally provided with an assistant forester, Robert Austin Leach, who was first stationed in Bruthen, then Cunninghame (Lakes Entrance) from 1890─1894.

In the Colquhoun State forest in 1901, Stoney, with the assistance of Foreman W. Hogg, who had replaced Forester Leach in 1895, started a small nursery raising the highly prized Gippsland grey box (Eucalyptus bosistoana) which was not regenerating satisfactorily. Stoney eventually persuaded the Department to fence off 20 acres, then he collected and sowed seed to produce a healthy crop of young trees.

In 1905, the nursery was inspected by the Acting Conservator, Augustus Warren Crooke, who was impressed and promised to follow up with more funds.

The Bairnsdale Shire Council commended Stoney for his initiative, and the next year the Bairnsdale Advertiser supported Stoney’s request for funds to clear a larger area of vermin and enclose it with wire, so the seedlings he had raised could be planted out. But it doesn’t appear that the funds were provided and there is no record of where the sown plot was located.

Foresters also had the responsibility for bushfires on State forests and Timber Reserves but had limited resources to tackle them.

The Bairnsdale Advertiser reported in 1890 that the Stoney sent a telegram to the Conservator of Forests, George Perrin,  notifying him that a large fire was burning in the Colquhoun Forest and that settlers in the vicinity were suffering severely from the fire. A gang of 40 sawmill hands, who were in the vicinity, were engaged in fighting the fire and every effort was made to reduce the damage to a minimum.

By 1904, Stoney had overall responsibility for the Briagolong, Bruthen and Cunninghame Districts with subordinate staff of James Firth at Briagolong and W. Hogg at Cunninghame. In 1905, Assistant Forester, Thomas Hayden, was appointed to Bruthen. Later in 1910, to cope with the expansion in the hewing industry, another officer, H.W. Bridle, was appointed to Genoa.

Howard’s name appears regularly in the local newspapers as an official associated with the Bairnsdale horse racing club.

Howard Stoney continued as the Inspector of Forests at Bairnsdale, but in 1916 after serving in East Gippsland since 1883, he transferred to Melbourne and retired shortly after. Chief Forester H. D. Ingle, stationed at Wiseleigh (Bruthen), then took over.

Howard Loftie Allan Stoney died in Bairnsdale on 4 January 1924, aged 76.

Note: I’m not sure if Howard had any connection with Gippsland’s famous Stoney Creek railway bridge, or if it’s just a coincidence.

Moray Douglas (2007). A History of the Forests and Forestry in East Gippsland. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2586554133/view

https://www.victoriasforestryheritage.org.au/forest-estate/native-forests/forest-descriptions/707-east-gippsland-forests.html

The Wombat State forest straddles the Great Dividing Range and stretches from Daylesford to Macedon. It has a very fragmented public land boundary and complex private land interface. There are many small settlements surrounding, and also as inliers, in the forests.

The Wombat forests are close to Melbourne and have been important for tourism and recreation for decades. The Hepburn Springs were discovered during the gold rush and a large number of Swiss and Italian immigrants lobbied the State Government in the 1860s to preserve them. Gold mining was thought to be irreversibly changing the underground water tables.

Uncontrolled timber harvesting began with the discovery of gold in 1851. During the gold rush there may have been as many as 190 sawmills, in and around the Wombat, cutting timber and producing fuel to support the mines and towns. The peak was in 1878 when 138,000 cubic metres of sawn timber alone was produced from more than 40 sawmills.

A parliamentary inquiry in 1864-65 “On the Advisableness of Establishing State Forests” by Assistant Commissioner of Crown Lands and Survey, Clement Hodgkinson, Surveyor General, Charles Whybrow Ligar and the Secretary for Mines, Robert Brough Smythe, wholeheartedly recommended setting aside large State forest reserves in the vicinity of the goldfields.

At the time, the forests were considered by many to be limitless “Wastelands of the Crown”. Timber cutters harvested the best trees and destroyed many more than they used. It also was common practice to strip bark from standing trees to clad buildings.

Overcutting continued despite repeated condemnation by the Conservator of Forests, George Perrin.

The soils and streams were also heavily disturbed in the quest for gold. The Government Botanist, Baron Ferdinand Von Mueller, is often credited with the spread of blackberries to stabilise soils disturbed by goldmining, which now uncontrollably chokes the bush and waterways.

In 1872, the first government nursery was established at Macedon by William Ferguson with the aim to restore land degraded by gold mining. Another soon followed at Creswick, opened by John La Gerche.

At the same time, the powerful Lands Department was alienating and selling as much public forests as it could, in a mad scramble to raise revenue and establish new settlements and farmlands.

By 1873, some 1150 steam engines in the Victorian gold mining industry were indiscriminately devouring over one million tons of firewood.

In May 1897, the Surveyor General – Samuel Kingston Vickery and the Inspector of Forests – James Blackburne, reported to Parliament on the “Permanent Reservation of Areas for Forest Purposes in Victoria”.

During their deliberations, they wisely remained mindful of interfering “as little as possible with further settlement” while at the same time giving particular attention to the needs for mining industry timber.

They finally recommended and defined more than one hundred areas across Victoria, except for the Mallee, to be permanently reserved as State forest.  The most important of these was the Wombat Forests (Daylesford—Trentham) —145,000 acres.

Vickery and Blackburne estimated that since the discovery of gold at Ballarat, timber for building, mining and fencing purposes worth at least seven million pounds had been removed. During the year 1896 alone, the Daylesford and Creswick railway conveyed 90,000 tons of firewood, 35,000 tons of laths, 5000 tons of mining props, 1000 tons of poppet heads, telegraph poles etc, together with 7,000,000 super feet of sawn timber. They also assumed that miners would continue to expect ongoing access to all State forests.

But the scale and unsupervised nature of the early timber harvesting, which was similar across all western Victoria, resulted in the forests being exhausted by the late 1890s.

The deadly bushfires, the indiscriminate clearing of Victoria’s public land, and the wastage of its forests and timber resources during the 1800s could no longer be ignored. In late 1897, the State government gave a very wide-ranging brief to a Royal Commission to examine the destruction of the State’s native forests.

The Wombat Forest was considered by the Royal Commission to be Victoria’s “most important forest” because of Its location and immense supplies of young timber, particularly messmate, stringybark, manna gum and peppermint, combined with its rapid growth rate.

The Commission’s Report number 4, “Wombat Forest: Its Resources, Management, and Control”, was released in June 1899, and described the Wombat as a “Ruined Forest”.

The Royal Commission recommended the permanent dedication of over 80,000 acres for forest purposes. But this was against considerable pressure for more alienation and selection.

The Wombat forests were finally identified in the 1907 legislation to create the new State Forest Department, the forerunner to the Forests Commission.

But it was too late, the once magnificent stands of messmate (Eucalyptus obliqua) had been destroyed and converted into stunted mixed species coppice (multiple stems which sprout from cut stumps), useful only for firewood and small mining props.

Subsequent silvicultural improvement works by the Forests Commission during the 1920s and ‘30s, rehabilitated the cut-over and badly degraded forests by removing defective overstory trees to encourage regeneration of new seedlings, together with thinning excess saplings and coppice. These works helped the forests return to reasonable levels of productivity and gave them time to recover.

Low intensity timber harvesting recommenced in the 1920s based on the thinning.  In some areas single large trees were harvested so that new trees could replace them. This was known as the Single Tree Selection System.

In September 1939, at the same time as the outbreak of WW2, the Egyptian State Railways placed a huge order to supply 26,455 messmate and brown stringybark (E. baxteri) telegraph poles. The poles ranged in length from 22 feet to 60 feet and totalled over three million superficial feet of timber. (>7000 m3).

The poles were supplied by thinning the stringybark forests at Daylesford and Trentham after they had grown back as a direct result of the Forests Commission’s earlier silvicultural programs to repair the damage to the bush caused by gold mining.

But the post-war housing boom led to a big increase in the level of timber harvesting from all the state’s forests. Political pressure from municipalities, local parliamentarians and the Returned Services League (RSL) was intense, which saw many new sawmills given log allocations from the Wombat.

The demand for timber was high, and small groups of large trees were harvested, a practice known as Group Selection. But after concerns by local foresters, in 1948, the Single Tree Selection System was reintroduced.

In 1954, the Wombat Forest yielded almost 70,000 cubic metres of logs, but the District Inspector doubted whether this level could be sustained.

Meanwhile, Victoria’s timber industry progressively moved eastwards after the war, coinciding with the completion of the salvage in the Central Highlands forests which had been burnt in 1939.

This move eased the pressure on the Wombat forests and allocations were trimmed by 7% from 1959 and further cut each year to 1961. Some 60% of Wombat sawmills closed or merged during the 1960s and 1970s. Many continued to operate with logs sourced from the considerable area of private forests.

In 1963, Continuous Forest Inventory (CFI) plots were established across the Wombat to determine forest growth. Measurements again of these plots in 1968 were used to estimate the level of growth in the whole forest over the previous five years, and then to determine sustainable harvesting rates. But the CFI plots only sampled a very small selection of the complex mixed-aged and mixed-species Wombat forests. The figures therefore had high levels of inherent uncertainty.

But the CFI measurements indicated that only the larger, older trees were showing any reasonable growth, and it appeared that the Single Tree Selection System prevented younger trees from growing satisfactorily.

Therefore, in 1973, a two-stage harvesting and regeneration process called the Shelterwood System was introduced.

In the first stage, most trees were harvested, but several of the best trees were retained and allowed to grow on, while producing seed and shelter for regeneration.  The Basal Area retention for the first shelterwood cut was 9-11 m2/ha.

The second stage involved harvesting the retained trees before they began to slow the growth of the regenerating forest. But because of operational reasons many of the second stage cuts did not proceed.

The Land Conservation Council (LCC) conducted its study of the Ballarat area in 1982, which recommended that most of the Wombat State forest remain managed for a balance of multiple uses including timber harvesting and recreation.

The Timber Industry Strategy was released in 1986 and set a Sustainable Yield (SY) of 60,000 m3/yr of sawlogs from the Wombat Forest.

This figure was later reduced to 41,100 m3 during the Regional Forests Agreement (RFA) process, and the addition of more conservation reserves.

However, following an external review, this figure was further reduced by 79% to 8,600 m3, coinciding with the announcement of the Our Forests Our Future (OFOF) program in February 2002.

Controversially, additional State Government announcements and decisions such as creating new National Parks in the Otways and Cobboboonee, saw the cessation of all timber harvesting in western Victoria.  The last major sawmill to cut sawlogs from the Wombat Forest was Black Forest Timbers at Woodend, which closed in 2007.

https://www.victoriasforestryheritage.org.au/forest-estate/native-forests/forest-descriptions/553-the-wombat-forest.html

The Heytesbury State forest was once on the western side of the Otway Ranges, south of Cobden and Terang.

The first timber mill was established in the 1850s by James McLure between Curdie Vale and Timboon.

In 1882, the Victorian Inspector of Forests, William Ferguson, made a field survey of the Heytesbury Forest. He estimated there were 60,000 acres of grasstree plains thought to be of little commercial or agricultural use.

There were big bushfires in 1886.

In 1892, the Curdies River area became accessible by a railway from Camperdown to Timboon which enabled market access for timber and dairy produce. But life was hard, farms struggled, and many families just drifted away to other districts.

In about 1908, the Victorian Department of Agriculture cleared 1,000 acres of the grass tree plains to establish an experimental farm. As a result, some land was made available for selection, but it was flat and became easily waterlogged, so farming was not a big success.

The State Government and the Minister for Lands, David Oman, tried to sell 27,000 acres of State forest in the southern Otways for farming in 1923. The proposal faced formidable opposition from sawmillers, the community as well as the new Chairman of the Forests Commission, Owen Jones. The plan was eventually shelved but Jones became a political casualty of the saga and left for New Zealand not long after in 1925.

Other government relief schemes had major impacts on the Heytesbury forests. These were the building of the Great Ocean Road, and the establishment of the Bailey Settlement between 1928-33, where some of the forests east of Timboon were cleared for 50 dairy farms and over 70 miles of roads were grubbed. The Education Department opened five new schools and the CRB built main access roads.

The scheme was the brainchild of Henry Stephen Bailey, local Labor MP and member of the Legislative Assembly for Warrnambool, who also had been recently appointed as the Minister for Crown Lands. The scheme is sometimes also known as the Heytesbury Closer Settlement Scheme.

But in 1931, the local Shire Council condemned the Minister for Lands for opening up the Heytesbury forest to settlement without some provision and protection for forest reserves.

The second and much larger Heytesbury Land Settlement Scheme began in the 1950s and was strongly supported by the State Premier, Henry Bolte, who grew up in Ballarat and owned a farm in the western district. The Heytesbury Scheme was sometimes known as “Bolte’s Blunder” by its critics.

At the beginning of 1951, the Soldier Settlement Commission began considering developing three major areas of Crown land at Heytesbury, Yanakie and Nyora.

By December 1953, the Land Settlement Act created farming opportunities for young civilian men without previous war service.

In response to the proposed clearing of Crown land, the Forests Commission conducted an extensive aerial and ground reconnaissance of about 150,000 acres at Heytesbury, including the parishes of Waarre, Latrobe, Coradjil, Wiridjil, Cooriejong, and Natte Murrang.

The following year in 1954, the Commission reserved 9,000 acres which carried good stands of messmate and stringybark as Permanent Forest under Section 52 (1) of the Forest Act 1928.

The remaining 70,000 acres of unused Crown land (i.e. Protected forest) in the Heytesbury district were then set to be cleared for 200 new farms, each with a family of five people.

Clearing of the first 7,000 acres began in 1956, by which time Victoria’s WW2 Soldier Settlement program was starting to wind down.

Access to heavy and more powerful machinery enabled effective clearing. There were about 80 crawler and wheeled tractors pulling ploughs, drills and rakes.

Two large 220 hp bulldozers attached a long steel chain to an 8-foot diameter steel ball to smash down the forest. The trees were then pushed into windrows and burnt. The cleared land was smudged, harrowed, raked and seeded. After two or three years of grazing the land, it was allocated to settlers.

But the clearing was entire and left almost no remnant forest undisturbed. And it seems there were few voices of opposition.

A prison farm had been established at Cooriemungle in 1940 to house 60 low-risk prisoners who were near the end of their sentences. The inmates helped with the land clearing, and for a while they worked in a nursery raising seedlings for FCV plantations in the Otways. They also did some planting work but the travel time each day was too long. The prison closed in 1977.

By 1958, the land developed at Heytesbury, Yanakie and East Goulburn was ready for transfer to civilian settlement.

The first section of the Heytesbury was opened in late 1959 by which time it was no longer part of the Soldier Settlement Scheme and had been transferred for civilian settlement under the Land Settlement Act.

The first 25 families arrived in 1960 and were allocated a 200-acre farm, a 3-bedroom house, 29 cows, a bull, plus 10 water troughs, two water points, a hay shed, dairy, tool shed and garage. They could purchase the farm outright or arrange finance through the scheme.

In 1962, the township previously known as Heytesbury was renamed after Hugh Leslie Simpson, Chairman of the Rural Finance and Settlement Commission.

By 1963, the local community had grown to 50 farming families, followed soon after by another 40. The community became big enough to support a football club and other social activities. The Heytesbury scheme eventually created 378 farms.

Dairy farm development at Heytesbury ceased in the 1970s and during the 1980s the remaining land was gradually sold publicly in various-sized lots. The Rural Finance Corporation held its final clearing sale on 24 May 1989.

Despite initial scepticism, the land became one of Australia’s most successful dairy regions.

The next time the State Government attempted such a large-scale conversion of crown land into farmland was in the late 1960s in the Little Desert. But that’s a different story.

In March 1988, an area of 1,039 ha was transferred to the Department of Conservation, Forests and Lands (CFL) for softwood production.

Around the time of the release of the Timber Industry Strategy, the State Government spruiked agroforestry as the future at Heytesbury.

Ironically, the forests at Heytesbury which had been cleared and converted to farmland in the 1950s and 60s was purchased and replanted with plantations of blue gum (E. globulus) and shining gum (E. nitens) for woodchip export from Portland.

In 2003, the Midway company bought 4 farms at Heytesbury totalling 400 ha and others followed. The area became incorporated into the “green triangle” in southwest Victoria with about 160,000 ha of softwoods, plus another 110,000 ha of short-rotation hardwood plantations.

This plantation conversion was not universally welcomed by the community, and loud protests soon followed and are ongoing.

Rosamund Duruz, (1974,) Death of a forest: a story of the Heytesbury Shire. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZS0r8_Qk_VF-05qNHzvwEPy7kD2L77vL/view

Before Airbnb, TripAdvisor and online accommodation bookings, or grabbing a glossy colour brochure at the local travel agent, tourism was a core function of both State government and local councils.

The Victorian Railways first established an “Inquiry Office” in 1888 at Spencer Street Station to assist tourists. They offered road maps and guides and also organised reservations at hotels and guest houses.

Organised tours were very popular before access to personal cars became more common. The railways also built and operated the Chalet at Mt Buffalo.

Skyline Tours began on the Mt Bogong Range in 1926 as “Personally Escorted Mountain Hikes”.

Control of the Victorian Government Tourist Bureau transferred from the Railways to the newly created Tourist Development Authority in 1958.

The Forests Commission didn’t offer tourism packages but promoted State forests by providing facilities at popular destinations like Sherbrooke, the Grampians and Marysville.

This magnificent 80-page coffee table book was produced as a prelude to the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games.

There were others in the series produced by the Australian Publicity Council.

The effusive preface was written by the Premier John Cain Snr.

This small selection of images reflects an unashamed sense of optimism and pride in country Victoria, particularly its forests and the timber industry.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/269527621

By the early 1980s, the Forests Commission employed some 300 foresters, plus a further 500 technical and administrative staff, and well over 1000 works and fire crew, spread across country Victoria in 48 districts and 7 divisional offices.

Most of them lived and worked in small country towns or larger regional cities. Head Office was small by comparison.

More importantly, there was a recognition by the Commission and the State Government of the significant social and economic contribution that departmental staff, and their families, made by simply living in the country and being part of the fabric of rural society.

Families sent their kids to local schools… shopped locally… drank at the local pub… bought coffee at the local café… picked up fish ‘n chips on the way home from work on Friday night… and just sorta fitted in…

Significantly, many of the big departmental purchases like fuel and hardware were also made locally too…

Along with other professionals such as schoolteachers, bank managers and the police, departmental staff often volunteered, or were coopted, for important community leadership roles in local sporting clubs, social and civic groups such as CFA brigades, or service organisations like Rotary or Lions.

As soon as a new forestry family arrived in a small town they were approached by the footy, netball or cricket club to be part of the local team.

And it wasn’t uncommon for the tanker, or tents and pumps from the fire store to be used at a local community event like a school fete, or the grader to quietly run a firebreak around the local footy ground or the golf course on the edge of town.

Some chopping blocks supplied to a country showground in time for the annual fair. Or maybe a load of dry firewood delivered by the crew to the old folk’s home in winter which was always welcomed with fresh scones and cups of tea.

There were unstated boundaries to this philanthropic largess, but the District Forester was a respected figure in the community and allowed some discretion.

When I was the Gippsland Regional Forests Manager, I instituted an annual “Give-Back-Day”. The staff and crew then chose and organised an activity in their local community as a gift. But importantly, there was no media and no fanfare.

Integrity is about doing the right thing, even when no one is watching –  C.S. Lewis

The kindergarten at Erica received a lick-of-paint and their garden tidied up, while a cancer respite centre near Powelltown had some dangerous trees felled as chainsaw practice and a bit of earth works done with the D4 to create a walking path. Some simply went en masse to give blood at the Red Cross caravan.

The Nowa Nowa Nudes Festival was quietly sponsored, with a few raised eyebrows and muffled giggles, to support the local community arts project.

But best of all, the winning sculpture was selected by a panel including the local staff at a gala evening, complete with burley blokes in Blundstone boots wearing checked flanny shirts, ladies in colourful frocks, lots of noisy kids, and a “nosh-up” feast of party pies, canapés, chilled bubbles or a cold frothy beer. It was always a fun occasion…

The winning entry was then mounted by the local crew in a section of walking track on a bit of State forest near the river.  But more importantly, everyone in the town enjoyed a stronger “Pride of Place”.

I have been fortunate enough to study community forestry in the UK, Canada, Sweden and Indonesia, and have seen the power of partnerships when forestry staff and their families are encouraged to do stuff together with the community.

Building successful long-term partnerships in country towns was not a quick fix of engaging external PR consultants and media managers, or sausage sizzles, or public meetings with sticky labels on whiteboards, or pointless strategic workshops to talk endlessly about stuff… or even about handing out grant money to others for stuff… but it was about planning, sharing, taking risks and doing stuff together to create lasting and meaningful relationships…

Taking a few risks and investing in local relationships takes time and energy but “paid-off-in-spades” when things got difficult or tough. People thought twice before writing a nasty letter to the Minister or contacting the local paper when they were cranky about something.

However, the progressive reduction in the numbers and seniority of forestry and parks staff living in small country towns over the last few decades, together with the progressive centralisation of services, resources, power and decision-making, has fuelled a stronger disconnect between the country and city. It has certainly not helped deal with the growing list of rural grievances.

In the years since the amalgamation of the Forests Commission and other agencies into the Department of Conservation Forests and Lands (CFL) in mid-1983 there has been eight more major departmental name changes including DCE, CNR, NRE, DPI, DSE, DEPI, DELWP and finally DEECA.

I can’t remember exactly how many other minor internal changes and convoluted job titles have been wrought but I seemed to have accumulated a large collection of name tags and business cards.

Furthermore, there has been 15 Government Ministers, 13 Secretaries and 9 Chief Fire Officers.

It was sometimes very difficult to remain buoyant while getting used to yet another tongue twister acronym.

Staff became the butt of so many tiresome jokes like CNR = Constant Name Review, DSE = Dept. of Sparks & Embers while NRE became No Rational Explanation.

But the family ancestry of the current organisations such as the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA), Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMV), Parks Victoria, VicForests (until recently), Alpine Resorts, Catchment Management Authorities (CMA), Hancock Victorian Plantations (HVP), and even the Country Fire Authority (CFA) can all be traced back to an earlier era.

Importantly, there is a strong legacy of tradition, camaraderie and spirit of innovation which remains embedded in the DNA of these modern organisations today.

But for most older bushies, all the corporate branding was lost on them because as far as they were concerned, we still worked for “The Forestry”.

Model Forests