In November 2024, a small group of cheerful volunteers from the Forests Commission Retired Personnel Association (FCRPA) toiled over nine days to dust-off, photograph and record nearly 300 artifacts in DEECA’s Altona Museum.
It followed a similar project at the FCRPA’s Beechworth Museum in February 2024.
The Altona project was generously supported by DEECA / FFMVic to engage professional photographer Mark Jesser from Wodonga whose boundless energy and good humour helped to create these amazing images.
Special thanks go to the FFMVic Chief Fire Officer, Chris Hardman, as well as Andrew Stanios and Kat Jensen for making it happen.
FFMVic crews and the ever-patient staff from Altona took a strong interest and also helped to shift some of the heavy items like pumps and the Bedford tanker which was very welcome.
The Forests Commission and its successors continuously encouraged bushfire research and innovation. In 1946 a large parcel of industrial land was purchased at North Altona as a fire cache and workshop.
The Altona workshop became a hotbed of new technological thingumajigs… a marvellous blend of Aladdin’s Cave of Wonders coupled with Wallace and Gromit’s madcap contraptions… an exhilarating place where lots of gizmos were invented and tested… mostly with astounding results… but nearly always with some head-scratching frustrations… and thankfully not too much explosive mayhem.
In fact, a lot of Australia’s pioneering equipment development was led by staff from Altona, often in collaboration with other State forestry and fire authorities. The CSIRO also contributed significantly.
The US Forest Service, the US Bureau of Land Management and US State agencies such as the California Department of Forestry and Fire (CalFire) as well as the Canadian Forest Service faced similar challenges and proved strong and willing partners in sharing knowledge, ideas, equipment and expertise over many decades.
The collection at Altona was accumulated over many years by fire equipment wizard Barry (Rocky) Marsden.
The items at Altona represent just a small sample of the amazing story of Victoria’s forestry and bushfire heritage.
The largest item was undoubtedly the Bedford tanker which took two days and nearly 1000 photos which were later stitched together with photoshop. The oldest item is probably a daylight signal lamp from 1918. There are also many unique items, but the CSIRO incendiary machine and ping-pong incendiary machine developed at Altona probably had the most significant impact on fire management in Australia. There are plenty of gaps in the collection, but some items are in regional DEECA offices.
It’s hoped to merge the FCRPA’s Beechworth collection to Altona one day and rename the site to honour Rocky Marsden.
There may be some additions to the Altona museum over time, but space is limiting. There are still a few shipping containers full of stuff at Altona and Laverton to be sorted through.
Victoria’s largest recorded bushfire occurred on Black Thursday, 6 February 1851, which is often claimed to have burnt up to 12 million acres (5m ha), or about a quarter of the State.
By comparison, the Victorian bushfires in 1939 burnt 2 million hectares, while Black Summer of 2019-20 burnt 1.5 million ha.
It must also be said that the 1851 figure is probably inflated and unreliable because of the sparseness of witnesses, the largely unpopulated rural areas, combined with somewhat sketchy but colourful newspaper reports.
Interestingly, later explorers, surveyors and foresters found remnant stands of very large and very old trees in the mountain forests of the Central Highlands, the nearby Dandenong Ranges, the Yarra catchments, the Otways and the Strzelecki Ranges in Gippsland, as well as the snow gums in the Alps. These forest types are very susceptible to bushfire, which points to a lesser extent of the 1851 bushfire.
We will never know…
But what is now recognised as a typical Victorian weather pattern was emerging.
Two years earlier in the winter 1848 there was heavy rainfall, which was followed by high temperatures over the summer of 1848–49, which began to dry out the forests.
During the following winter of 1849 snow fell in Melbourne with more heavy deluges and floods. This rainfall no doubt led to a build-up of fuel in the forests and grasslands.
The summer of 1850-51 was long and hot with many uncontrolled bushfires about the ranges fringing Melbourne.
Thursday 6 February 1851 was one of the hottest day the European settlers could remember, and a fierce wind increased throughout the day. The Argus newspaper later reported.
Thursday was one of the most oppressively hot days we have experienced for some years. In the early morning the atmosphere was perfectly scorching, and at eleven o’clock the thermometer stood as high as 117° in the shade; at one o’clock it had fallen to 109 ° and at four in the afternoon was up to 113°.
Similar temperature extremes in Melbourne were reached again during major bushfires on Red Tuesday – 1898 (107°F), Black Friday – 1939 (114°F), Ash Wednesday – 1983 (109°F) and Black Saturday – 2009 (115°F).
The hot north wind was so strong that thick black smoke reached northern Tasmania,
It was also later reported that the intense heat could be felt 20 miles out to sea from Portland where a ship under the command of Captain Reynolds came under burning ember attack and was smothered by a blizzard of cinders, smoke and dust.
Eventually, a typical south westerly breeze and light rain cooled the land.
It’s hard to know the source of the ignitions, but historians suspect it was settlers clearing the land and prospectors in search of gold.
Remarkably, there were only 12 known deaths, no doubt because of the relatively small population of only 75,000 Europeans at that point, with about one third living in Melbourne.
The impact of the bushfires on the indigenous population is not recorded. It’s also unknown to what extent the disruption of traditional aboriginal burning patterns by 1851 may have contributed to the build-up of understory fuel.
But the discovery of gold and the huge population surge was only months away.
After some years of agitation, Queen Victoria signed the Australian Colonies Government Acton 5 August 1850 to separate the Port Phillip District from NSW to create the new independent Colony of Victoria.
When the news reached Melbourne from London on 11 November 1850 it was announced with great flourish under a tree at the northern end of the current Flagstaff Gardens.
The news about forming a new colony was then signalled to Melbourne residents by lighting a huge bonfire on Flagstaff Hill and putting up posters around the city.
Four days later on the 15 November, Governor Charles La Trobe led official celebrations in the Royal Botanic Gardens under a giant red gum that became known as the Separation Tree.
The legislation didn’t come into full effect until 1 July 1851.
Sadly, this magnificent tree was vandalised in 2010, and again in 2013, and subsequently died.
A poster dated 11 November 1850 from the Melbourne Morning Herald urges citizens to celebrate the new colony of Victoria. Source: State Library. http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/116207
The present-day State of Victoria had a hesitant start.
George Bass sailed from Sydney in 1797 in an open whaleboat with a crew of six on an epic and perilous journey to explore the southern coast. He travelled around the southern tip of Wilsons Promontory to land at the entrance to Western Port Bay near present-day Flinders.
Shortly after in February 1802, Lieutenant John Murray, aboard the Lady Nelson, entered Port Phillip Bay and formally took possession for Britain. Captain Matthew Flinders arrived 10 weeks later and climbed two major peaks at Arthurs Seat and the You Yangs. Their combined reports to Governor King influenced the decision to establish Victoria’s first official settlement in the following year.
Lieutenant-Colonel David Collins first settled at Sullivan Bay near present-day Sorrento with a group of British convicts in October 1803. However, a lack of fresh water, poor sandy soil and shortages of timber suitable for building, together with violent clashes with the local Aboriginals, led to Collins to recommend a move to the Derwent River in Van Diemen’s Land, and upon receiving permission, he left in two ships on 30 January and 20 May 1804 to establish Hobart.
Between 1801-04 the voyage of the French explorer Nicolas Baudin charted much of the southern coastline including Western Port Bay and French Island. He included the description of “La Terre Napoleon”, covering much of what is now Victoria and South Australia. Onboard was artist Charles Alexandre Lesueur who drew exquisite sketches of the east coast of Tasmania in 1802 which show many small plumes of smoke from Aboriginal fires.
Starting from NSW in October 1824, Hamilton Hume and William Hovell began an expedition southward to find new grazing land. They spent three days attempting to cross the Great Dividing Range at Mt Disappointment but were thwarted by the thick mountain forests. They eventually reached Corio Bay on 16 December, but because of navigational errors and omissions they mistakenly concluded that they had reached Western Port. However, their enthusiastic reports led NSW Governor Sir Ralph Darling to establish another short-lived convict settlement at Corinella at Western Port in November 1826, in part to protect the approaches from French explorers.
Between 1829 and 1830, Charles Napier Sturt led an expedition along the Murray River, sparking interest in the vast red gum forests and potential for settlement of land to the south.
Meanwhile, the Henty brothers established a permanent settlement near Portland in 1834. They had been disappointed with the Swan River in Western Australia and were unable to secure a land grant in Tasmania, so they squatted illegally with their flocks of sheep.
Major Thomas Mitchell’s famous overland expedition arrived at Portland in August 1836, and he was surprised to find the small but prosperous community living off the fertile farmland. He termed the region “Australia Felix” which is Latin for “Fortunate Australia”.
A year later in 1835, Australian grazier, entrepreneur and explorer, John Batman, led an expedition from Tasmania and claimed to have negotiated the purchase of over 600,000 acres of land between Port Phillip and Corio Bays from eight Wurundjeri elders in exchange for tools, blankets and food. He also famously identified a spot on the Yarra River which was to become the City of Melbourne and noted in his diary of 8 June 1835, “this will be the place for a village”. But Batman’s treaty was deemed illegal and subsequently rejected by Sydney-based Governor Sir Richard Bourke because Batman had no authority over Crown Land.
Crown Land was the principal asset of the British colonial government and its major source of power and revenue. To discourage similar illicit ventures in land dealing, the Sydney Government made Port Phillip a formal administrative division of New South Wales in September 1836 and established a magistrate’s office at Melbourne to administer new land regulations.
Pastoral runs spread over the following two years as far as Winchelsea, Inverleigh and Bacchus Marsh in the west, and Woodend and Kilmore in the north.
Timber licence regulations were also established under the Land Act which proved largely ineffective.
The timber industry was one of the first to establish in Melbourne to provide the raw materials for construction of buildings, wharves and fences. However, the pioneers of Port Phillip were largely from Tasmania, and they preferred to ship timber from sawmills and forests around Launceston and Hobart.
Melbourne’s first steam-powered sawmill was established by Alison and Knight in 1841 on the south-east corner of Collins and King Streets. And the first timber tramway in Victoria was built on the Portland jetty in 1846 to move loads between ships and the shore.
The main early explorers who ventured into the deep forests and mountains peaks of Gippsland included Angus McMillan in 1839 and Count Paul Strzelecki in 1840.
Prior to European discovery and settlement, Victoria was the home to many indigenous nations who had occupied the land for thousands of years and, over that time, had accumulated a deep knowledge and wisdom of the natural rhythms of the bush and fire.
The pre-colonial Aboriginal population of Victoria was estimated to be about 70,000, but European diseases such as smallpox decimated communities and reduced this number to less than 15,000.
Major impacts on native forests also occurred with the dispossession of Aboriginal people from their traditional lands between 1836 and 1842 associated with the establishment of extensive sheep runs. By 1845, fewer than 240 wealthy squatters held all the pastoral licences and became a powerful political and economic force in Victoria. There was often conflict between the new settlers and aboriginal communities over land and resources.
A map produced by the Mines Department in 1869 indicates that prior to European settlement, nearly 88% of Victoria had been forested, with the remaining 12% made up of open grasslands, coastal and alpine heathlands, lakes and mallee deserts. Alienation and sale of Crown Land with associated clearing of native forests for mining, roads, railways, pastures, agriculture, cities, towns and settlements over the subsequent century reduced this figure to about 36% by 2013.
The first European seafarers, explorers, surveyors and settlers witnessed and commented on aboriginal groups frequently lighting small and low intensity fires to burn the scrub. They also noted the open grassy forests and woodlands which they encountered.
Disruptions to the complex patchwork associated with traditional indigenous burning patterns undoubtedly led to profound changes to the state of Victoria’s native forests, particularly of the structure of the understory.
There is also strong evidence from pollen and charcoal particles found in lake sediments to suggest that major bushfires were more intense and more frequent following the arrival of Europeans.
By the late 1840s only about 75,000 Europeans occupied Victoria with Melbourne, Williamstown, Geelong and Portland as the dominant settlements. But the gold rush beginning in 1851 created a flood of miners and new settlers looking for land which led to major and lasting impacts on Victoria’s forests.
Distribution of Victoria’s forest trees. Prior to European settlement, nearly 88% of Victoria had been forested. Victorian Department of Mines 1869. University of Melbourne digital collection. https://digitised-collections.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/23731
Over the last few years I have written nearly 1000 short Facebook stories and lodged eight free eBooks in the state and national library. There are also more than 20 Wikipedia pages.
This year will see a shift of focus to writing a book about “The Working Forests” which seeks highlight the importance of our forests and the role they played in Victoria’s economic and social development since the 1840s.
I plan to interview a number of people and visit some important forest sites across Victoria this year.
The book will include the key roles that foresters played as early stewards and advocates for forest use, forest conservation, and protection from bushfire.
It will tell some stories of the wide and diverse cast of characters who have interacted with our forests – from foresters and firefighters, to local communities, to conservationists, to post cutters, logging contactors and sawmillers, and the many forest users.
The diverse range of products and benefits that State forests provide will be highlighted. “Balance” and “Multiple-Use” have been recurring themes for the management of our forests over many decades.
I also hope to explain the complexity of the evolving community and political attitudes towards forests and bushfires, together with the progressive shifts in the balance of their preservation and productive use.
The recent cessation of timber harvesting in Victoria’s is raw and remains controversial but is the conclusion of a long and complex backstory.
Looking back over the life of the Forests Commission, many things are apparent… like being a field-based organisation with stable and experienced leadership, staff having pride in their work and a strong “can-do culture” of getting the job done consistently shines through.
The family ancestry of the current organisations such as the Department of Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA), Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMV), Parks Victoria, VicForests, Alpine Resorts, Catchment Management Authorities (CMA), Hancock Victorian Plantations (HVP), and even the Country Fire Authority (CFA) can all be traced back to this earlier era.
Importantly, the Forests Commission left a strong legacy of tradition, camaraderie and spirit of innovation which remains embedded in the DNA of these modern organisations today.
There were many “firsts” … and a lot to be proud of…
I believe the story of our working forests needs to be told before it is lost, forgotten or falsely reinterpreted by others.
I intend to publish “The Working Forests” as another free eBook by the end of 2025.
The project is being generously supported by Eucalypt Australia with a Dahl Fellowship.
Drawing by David Parnaby of the antics of the sleeper cutters at Cann River in the 1950s.
The Sleeper Cutters – Cann River. David Parnaby graduated from the Victorian School of Forestry in 1940 and initially worked in Assessment Branch. He later had District postings at Heathcote, Powelltown, Dandenong Ranges, Bruthen and Beechworth. Promoted to District Forester in 1951, David was moved to Cann River, then Heathcote (1955), Castlemaine (1958) and Daylesford (1971). Following a period with Forest Protection in Melbourne he retired in 1980. David was an accomplished cartoonist who provided insightful and humorous commentary through the Victorian State Forester’s Association Newsletter. His keen eye for the antics of sleeper cutters at Cann River in the 1950s remains a classic. The more you look at this, the more you will see. This copy was a gift to the FCV’s Chief Forest Assessor, Murray Paine, in 1978 and is now with Gregor Wallace.
The fantastic sketch on this Christmas card was done in 1961 by Alan Rawady, the Forests Commission’s graphic artist. It was found in a box of old stuff at the Altona museum.
The card was produced at a time when Alf Lawrence was the Chairman with Herb Galbraith and Ben Benallack as Commissioners. It includes the circular “Seal” of the Commission with myrtle beech fronds, which had been in service since the 1920s.
Alan also designed of the iconic “two-tree” logo in the mid-1960s.
Alan had the grand title of Artist and Display Designer and was part of the three-person Publicity Branch with Alan Watts as the manager and George Self as the photographer. They were situated on the third floor of 453-455 Latrobe Street. The building is gone now.
It’s been another busy year on the Victorian Forests and Bushfire Heritage Facebook page.
Once again, I have gathered up the main stories into a free eBook and published them in the national and state libraries so they don’t get lost in the Facebook soup.
But the biggest achievement for 2024 has undoubtedly been photographing and cataloguing items in both the FCRPA Beechworth museum and the DEECA museum at Altona, and working to make them freely available online.
Two self-guided historical walks at Creswick have also been created – one around the VSF school grounds and another near the old sawpit gully nursery.
Please feel free to download and/or share the link to Series Five.
Finton George Gerraty was born on 23 September 1899 at Myrtleford. He entered the Victorian School of Forestry (VSF) at Creswick in 1915 and graduated two years later in 1917.
His postings with the Forests Commission Victoria included District Forester at Orbost in 1920, DFO Gellibrand in 1924 and then DFO Niagaroon (Taggerty District) in 1927.
Later in 1930, Finton was promoted as the Chief Forester at Powelltown, while only a short time later in 1935 he was elevated to the Inspector of Forests for the Central Division based at Healesville. He then moved to a similar role at Berwick in 1937.
Finton somehow found time to study towards a Diploma of Forestry (Victoria) and the topic of his thesis was “The regeneration, silvicultural development and utilisation of Eucalyptus obliqua – messmate stringybark”.
Never office bound, he is said to have personally measured a fallen mountain ash tree near Noojee after the 1939 bushfires at 338 feet and reported that “its top was tantalisingly broken off”.
Finton also took a strong interest in new technology such as the introduction of crawler tractors for logging at Marysville in the late 1930s, as well as the operation of Kurth Kiln at Gembrook to produce charcoal during the war years.
Finton Gerraty was considered by his peers as ambitious, keen, efficient and accurate. But he was sometimes described by his detractors as being a tough forester from the old hard school… whatever that means…
In March 1942, Finton joined the 12th Victorian Battalion of the Volunteer Defence Corps (VDC) with the rank of Captain. And during the latter part of the war, he was seconded to the Department of Army to examine and advise on the timber resources of the Northern Territory and then organise logging, transport and milling.
At the conclusion of the war in 1945, Finton assisted Associated Pulp and Paper Mills (APPM) in Tasmania to prepare a utilisation and roading plan for the company’s pulpwood procurement areas.
Within weeks of the end of the war, the Chairman of the Commission, A. V. Galbraith, outlined his vision for the future, or “Grand Design” as I prefer to call it. Then a quiet revolution began across Victoria’s forests and an epic story which took more than eighty years to unfold where several things were in play.
Undoubtedly, the main social and economic beneficiaries of Galbraith’s Grand Design were small rural settlements like Heyfield, Mansfield, Myrtleford, Bruthen, Orbost, Cann River, Colac, Alexandra and Swifts Creek which grew into thriving communities based upon the timber industry.
These communities became flourishing “Timber Towns” with jobs, decent housing, schools, shops, sporting clubs, public transport and health care. A more secure and safer place for families than the previous itinerant sawmills set deep in the bush, which was characteristic of the earlier period.
From May 1947, Finton was appointed as one of the three Forests Commissioners, and after the death of A V Galbraith in May 1949 he was elevated as Chairman. He then had the main task to implement the Grand Design that Galbraith had previously laid out.
In 1952, Finton travelled to England, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Canada and USA investigating forestry practices and industries, particularly the economics of utilising lower grades of wood. And while he was away, he represented Victoria at the 6th Empire Forestry Conference at Quebec in Canada.
In 1956, the Commission’s Newport seasoning works closed under a controversial financial cloud. A situation made worse because Newport had barely ever been profitable. Newspapers accused the Forests Commission of “juggling the books” to turn a loss into a profit. There were also allegations of unexplained “leakage” of large quantities of valuable timber stocks.
Finton George Gerraty died suddenly of a heart attack at his home on 25 June 1956, right in the middle of the Newport crisis. The State Government was furious about the whole financial fiasco and there were calls for an independent inquiry and appointing an outsider to run the Forests Commission.
It took more than six months for the political and media dust to settle before Alf Lawrence was finally appointed as the replacement Chairman of the Forest Commission in December 1956. A role he occupied until his retirement in July 1969.
Photo: Looking more like mobsters than foresters. A.V .Galbraith, FCV Chairman, Finton George Gerraty, then Inspector of Forests and Herbert FitzRoy OIC Boys Camp at Rubicon. Photo: Allan Layton
The suggestion of a golf club at Olinda in the Dandenong Ranges began circulating in 1905 and was revived again in 1931 as an idea to celebrate Victoria’s centenary.
The land was identified by the local community as a bushfire menace after the 1926 fires and many claimed that a well-maintained golf course would reduce the threat.
During the subsequent years several unsuccessful attempts were made to establish a golf course despite the amounts of monies raised. The Nicholas family of Burnham Beeches, Sir George Knox and Messrs Eric Leone, E J Gillies, W Brann and A P Dodd were active in public meetings and discussions with the Forests Commission. The Hon Gilbert Chandler also supported the project.
The first 9-hole course, occupying a 70-acre parcel of State forest, was proposed in 1933.
The Olinda golf club formed in 1934 and while some locals opposed the idea, the Forests Commission Victoria (FCV) granted a long-term lease over the State forest.
The course was laid out in 1936 but fell into disuse during WW2.
In January 1948, a licence for a public golf course on Reserved Forest was issued by the Forests Commission. A golf club had already been formed, and its members began preparing a 28-hectare area for the course.
In 1952, the club was revitalised under an affiliation with the Victorian Golf League and Mr A O Wilson was appointed as the manager following voluntary liquidation of original Olinda Golf Club.
In May 1956 the golf course declared as reserve under Section 56 of Forests Act. A month later in June 1956, a Committee of Management was appointed, with the original members including Mr & Mrs Dodd along with the District Forester, Mr Jim Westcott. The Committee then appointed Mr & Mrs Len Myers as Course “licensees” for operation and maintenance of the Course. A year late in October 1957 regulations were promulgated.
In July 1961, the Committee requested the Forests Commission for provision of a kiosk. In 1966 a temporary kiosk was built. In January 68, new tenants in kiosk, Jim and Pat Sanders, became course “licensees” and were appointed to manage and maintain the course.
From about 1964 onwards, the golf course was set aside as a Special Purposes Reserve and upgraded and extended at considerable expense to the Forests Commission. Pumps and sprinklers were also installed to keep the course green in summer.
After more bushfires in 1968, the Forests Commission entered into a renewed lease with a fledgling Olinda Golf Club.
The extended 18-hole course was opened in April 1970 by the Minister for Forests, Edward Raymond Meagher.
In May 1972 the Olinda Golf Club was given approval by Commission to build a new club house on course. In March 1975, The reserve was reduced to 35 ha with 16 ha added to adjacent Olinda Arboretum.
In February 1978, the State Government offered a $70,000 loan to the golf course at 5% interest which enabled it to build much needed facilities and clubrooms including the popular Bide-A-While restaurant which was later opened by Lindsay Thompson in September 1980. An ambitious proposal for a motel was also considered but rejected.
The District Forester from Kallista, Jim Westcott, and later Frank May, sat on the Committee of Management. This was an unusual arrangement. Olinda was the only golf course in Victoria where the Forests Commission took an active role.
The Commission assisted in running the course by providing a tractor and funds in the District budget to employ a person for work on the course. The District also provided crew and equipment for specific jobs from time to time. Head Office explosives staff also assisted with rock-blowing on fairways.
Strategic Firebreak.
In January 1962, there were major bushfires across Melbourne’s outskirts, including the Dandenong Ranges, which killed 33 people and destroyed more than 450 homes. The Olinda township was attacked on three sides and many houses were destroyed and forests burnt. Many people evacuated to the relative safety of the golf course, which was also partially burnt.
The newly established 100-acre National Rhododendron Gardens adjoined the golf course and burned as well. The rhododendron gardens were also on State forest and had been licensed from the Forests Commission in 1960. Most of the mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) were killed in the bushfire, and the present trees in the garden and carpark have regrown since that event.
The Forests Commission depot and residence on Chalet Road, occupied by overseer Charlie Chamberlain, was lost when the FCV softwood plantations near Silvan dam exploded in flames.
In the wake of the catastrophic 1962 bushfires there was considerable community outcry. The State Government, with the strong backing of the local MP Bill Borthwick, implemented a long-term buy-back scheme whereby the Forests Commission purchased private land and houses in high fire risk areas, mostly notably on the western face of the Dandenong Ranges.
As part of this planning process, the Dandenong Ranges Fire Prevention Committee (DRFPC) identified the Olinda ridgeline as a critical firebreak and buffer for the town.
Also, after the deadly 1962 bushfires, the DRFPC urged the construction of the nearby Olinda Swimming Pool to act as an emergency fire dam. The 100,000-gallon pool had six fire hydrants to fill CFA and FCV tankers and was located on 5-acres of State forest. The pool was opened by the Minister for Forests, Lindsay Thompson, on 30 December 1964.Furthermore, after a lengthy period of procrastination, community consultation and planning, local Forests Commission crews began replanting the 192 hectares of the old softwood plantation which were burnt below Chalet Road in 1962 with exotic and less-flammable species such as oaks and elms. The area also has a magnificent lookout over the Olinda forest towards Silvan Reservoir and was renamed the R. J. Hamer Arboretum in April 1977.
Importantly, the Olinda Golf Course was strategically positioned on the main ridge. It sat between the R. J. Hamer Arboretum, the swimming pool and the Forests Commission depot in Woolrich Road to the east, and the Olinda Recreation Reserve and the National Rhododendron Gardens to the west. These parcels of public land, all with significant local community use and tourism attraction, had reduced levels of flammable vegetation, and collectively acted as an effective east-west firebreak.
Parks Victoria took over the responsibility for the Olinda golf course in 1989 and issued a new lease, but club membership continued to decline, which was a common pattern among public golf courses across Melbourne. Olinda finally closed in about 2012 and the remaining club members shifted to Emerald.
The State Government announced that the land would not be reinstated as a golf course but set aside for other community uses. The redevelopment of the site has not been without local controversy.
The Olinda pool also closed for a time but reopened after community agitation.
While there are many other golf courses on the edge of small country towns across rural Victoria, which often operate on private land or under a variety of Crown Land leases and occupancy arrangements, the Olinda golf course was a showpiece for the Forests Commission as a unique example of passive fire prevention on State forest, as well as being a valuable asset for the local community.
The 34-hectare Olinda golf course was positioned on a main ridge which adjoined the R. J. Hamer Arboretum and the Forests Commission depot in Woolrich Road to the east. The Olinda Recreation Reserves and the National Rhododendron Gardens were to the west. These parcels of public land collectively acted as a unique east-west strategic firebreak. The Olinda Swimming Pool was also built after the 1962 bushfires as an emergency fire dam. Source: MapShare
Charles George Pettman began working with the Forests Commission in the early 1930s on an unemployment relief program.
About 30 unemployed men came from Melbourne and beyond to their first camp on the old Princes Highway at Burnt Bridge, which was situated on the Toorloo Arm of Lake Tyers in East Gippsland.
There was a hot meal ready when the men arrived, enough kerosine in lanterns for one night, and their beds were two poles on forked sticks and two chaff bags. Clothing, boots and blankets could be purchased from the Commission while food came from Lakes Entrance. The men were paid on a Friday, but 5/8ths of their pay was sent home to their dependants.
The Forests Commission supervising officer was Freddie Kerr and the crew were engaged for three months for silvicultural works such as ring-barking the overmature trees to release the regrowth. Most of the men had never used axes before and blisters were common, but after 3 months there were some good axemen amongst them. They also fought bushfires in the summer and did fuel reduction burning along firebreaks during the autumn.
At the time, the Forests Commission only had rakes, slashers, axes and knapsacks to fight bushfires. There were very few motor vehicles or spotting towers, so the Commission employed fireguards such as Bill Ah Chow and Charlie Pendergast to patrol the bush on horseback to spot fires.
Because there weren’t many roads, fires started by lightning in the mountains meant a lot of walking. So, in the remote high country they were often left to trickle and the cattlemen kept the Commission office informed.
During the war years, Charlie supervised charcoal burning crews near Nowa Nowa. The wood for the kilns was cut from the old ring-barked trees and the charcoal was bagged and transported by train to Melbourne for use in gas-producer cars.
Charlie also helped build Cosstick’s Weir in the Colquhoun State forest in 1945. The weir was used for fire protection and not to fill steam trains as is a common rumour.
After the war, Charlie remained with the Commission building roads in the Irish waterholes area. The thick scrub was first cut with a hand slasher, the trees grubbed out with hand tools and the logs rolled off the road by hand, until blocks and tackle became available. The arrival of bulldozers and graders as well as an ex-army 4WD White Scout Car for transport made the work much easier.
The Nunnett Road was also built by Charlie to open the area for logging, and he later was given the job to supervise the harvesting contractors.
During his career with the Commission, Charlie fought in many major bushfires including the 1965 blaze which burned for several weeks from Lake Glenmaggie to beyond Bruthen.
He retired from the Commission in 1975 and took a role as a guide with Forestours during the holiday period.
Photograph taken in 1935/36 (Source: D Pettman) : Charles Pettman (back row, extreme left with dog) and FCV Employment Relief crew on the Old Buchan Road
Photograph taken in 1935/36 (Source: D Pettman) : Charles Pettman (first standing row, 3rd from right) at an FCV Employment Relief Camp near Burnt Bridge, Toorloo Arm, Lake Tyers
Photograph taken in 1935/36 (Source: D Pettman) : Charles Pettman (front, 3rd from left) at an FCV Employment Relief Camp near Burnt Bridge, Toorloo Arm, Lake Tyers
Photograph taken in 1935/36 (Source: D Pettman) : Charles Pettman (left) – probably near Burnt Bridge, Toorloo Arm, Lake Tyers.
Military training has always been an important activity on Victoria’s State forests and public lands. Probably the most notable example was the takeover of Wilsons Promontory by the commandos in 1941.
Forests were used for both target aiming and live firing. The prominent Lollipop Tree on Mt Beckworth, west of Ballarat, was used by RAAF bomb aimers during WW2.
Manoeuvres by Army Reserve troops are still common.
Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) occasionally turns up in the bush. It ranges from small rifle shells and casings through to practice hand grenades and larger mortars and rockets.
There are many epic stories of departmental staff encountering dangerous UXOs during the handover of Point Nepean from the Army to become a National Park in the 1980s.
Bomb craters are still visible in the shallow mudflats of Lake Reeve near the 90 Mile Beach and scrub fires in the nearby Dutson bombing range can also be very problematic.
Not surprisingly, UXOs are most likely to be found around existing military bases. The land at Puckapunyal had become severely degraded because of prolonged use by the military and in the early 1970s a major soil stabilisation and revegetation program began. The Soil Conservation Authority took the lead role while the Forests Commission provided trees from its nurseries as well as planting crews.
In May 1989, a group of seven employees were planting trees on the Puckapunyal base near Tehans Hill and lit a small fire to keep warm. But the fire was on top of an old 105mm anti-tank shell buried in the ground which exploded seriously injuring the men, one critically.
On 5 April 1958, a fire was reported about 5 miles northwest of Wandilo, which is not far from Mt Gambier and the Victorian – South Australian border.
The Bluff firetower reported light smoke at 08.25 am on Saturday morning and by 11.40 am the fire was moving quickly and out of control.
It had been a dry autumn and the fire, which began in a dry swamp of dense t-tree, was fanned by strong winds, quickly spread into a mixture of native forest and pine plantations.
The cause of the fire was never officially determined, although most suspected it had escaped after someone was burning off on private land near an old disused railway line.
By midday the temperature reached 92 degrees Fahrenheit, and the Relative Humidity at Mt Gambier Airport dropped to 29% as a fire storm developed under a 40-mph north westerly wind. The FFDI was 33 (Very High).
As the conditions worsened, the fire began crowning through the pines and throwing spot fires up to 20-30 chains (600 m) ahead of the main front as it crossed Earls Road near the disused Medhurst railway station.
Several trucks with firefighters from the Department of Woods and Forests had been dispatched and they entered an east-west firebreak between two blocks in the pine plantation. The adjoining Pinus radiata and Pinus pinaster stands were about 24 years old and un-pruned.
Around 3.00 pm the firefighting crews were caught unprepared in a junction zone as two flanks of the fire passed over them and then swirled back to join.
Two forestry trucks became bogged in soft sand when trying to evacuate while another damaged a gearbox and could not move, leaving 11 men to take cover in their vehicles.
Eight men died. The youngest was only 16.
– Remo Quaggiato
– Charles Dolling
– Bertram Wilson
– Victor Fensom
– Maurice Treloar
– Francis Burdett
– Walter Pearce
– Bernadus Damhuis
Three remaining men survived with moderate burns. Two sheltered in the cab of one of the trucks and emerged safely after the intensity of the bushfire had subsided even though their vehicle was well alight. One man survived by sheltering in a deep sandy wheel rut and covering his face with his coat.
Another party of men narrowly escaped as they drove their truck to safety pursued by roaring flames. The heat was so intense that the clothing of several of the men on the truck caught fire.
The Mount Gambier fire service received its first indication of the tragedy when it heard an emergency “mayday” call over the two-way radio. Grim-faced crews gathered around heard a dramatic call for “Police, a doctor and a priest.”
The 3300-acre fire was brought under control early the next day.
A public outcry followed, and the inquest found the men had been failed by their equipment, with vehicle fuel lines vaporising in the heat and truck cabins ill-equipped for survival situations. Firefighting tactics and equipment changed after the tragedy.
The Wandilo fire occurred at a time when bushfire behaviour research in Australia was in its infancy and years before methods were available to fire managers to quantitatively assess fire potential.
The legendary CSIRO fire scientist, Alan McArthur, published a review of the Wandilo fire later in 1966. It became a benchmark in understanding fire behaviour in pine plantations.
A small memorial marking the site of one of South Australia’s most tragic bushfire disasters sits in the midst of tall radiata pine trees, largely hidden away from public view.
Phyllis Bromby was born on 10 April 1888 in Armadale as the daughter of Edward Hippius Bromby and Jane Nodin.
The Bromby’s were a well-educated, middle-class family living in early colonial Melbourne which brought many important social and professional connections. Her father was the first librarian of the University of Melbourne, and her grandfather, The Rev. John Bromby, was the founding Headmaster of Melbourne Grammar.
Sadly, Edward’s wife Jane, and their ten-year-old daughter Dorothea, both died within six months of each other in 1888. So, at the age of 41, Edward became a widowed father with two sons and a baby daughter, Phyllis.
However, his appointed at Melbourne University brought stability into Edward’s life and he later remarried Edith Browne in 1892 and moved to Heidelberg.
The prominent Melbourne landscape artist Walter Withers and his family also settled in Heidelberg and his daughters, Gladys and Margery, became close friends with Phyllis, a keen photographer who documented family life.
Earlier in about 1874 Edward had taken up a selection of land at Gembrook, which served as a retreat for his family. They also had the means to travel, and Phyllis continued to photograph her many adventures including forest scenes in the Dandenong Ranges. Some of her famous photos are in the State Library.
Phyllis died on 16 July 1978 in East Malvern, aged 90.
Lightning is one of the major causes of bushfires, particularly in the remote mountains.
This lightning detector system was developed by Dr. Peter Kourtz at Canada’s forest fire research institute. By 1977, some 300 were in use across the country.
The small mushroom antenna could detect short-range (20-mile) changes in electrostatic field associated with lightning strikes. It needed to be placed out in the open on a hilltop and away from nearby trees.
It simply counted the number of “strikes”.
The detector doesn’t seem to have a direction finding capability or be able to distinguish between cloud-to-cloud or cloud-to-ground lightning.
It’s not sure how this particular unit found its way to Victoria.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s (BOM) current lightning detector network uses radio waves emitted by lightning to pinpoint the location of lightning strikes. The network is operated by a private company that sends data to the BOM in real time.
Lightning detection systems use sensors like antennas, GPS receivers, and processing systems to detect radio waves, also known as sferics. The systems calculate the lightning’s location and speed by measuring how long it takes for the radio signal to reach the different antenna stations.
The BOM also has a Thunderstorm Tracker that uses weather radar data to identify areas of potential thunderstorm activity. The tracker updates every six minutes and shows the direction thunderstorms are moving, as well as their expected position in 10, 20, and 30 minutes
During August and September 2000, a total of 97 firefighting specialists from Australia and New Zealand were deployed to America.
This was the first time that a large number of operational firefighters had travelled from Australia and NZ to help their north American colleagues.
During the northern summer of 2000, America experienced one of its worst wildfire seasons. The situation was made worse by a long drought, severe fire weather and dry lightning storms which started thousands of new fires throughout the northern Rockies, into southern Idaho, Montana, Utah, Nevada and into the Sierra-Nevadas.
By early August 2000, over 15,000 firefighters from both America and Canada were fully committed, together with 700 tankers and 150 aircraft.
Conditions were expected to get worse and many fire experts thought it had the potential to rival the disastrous wildfires of 1910, which were on a scale similar to the 1939 Black Friday bushfires in Victoria.
It developed into a long and gruelling campaign, with crews engaged continuously for many months. By early August, all available forest fire control staff were either on a rotation or committed. There was nothing, or nobody, left to call. Many fires in remote locations were simply left to burn unattended.
Towards the end of October, nearly 86,000 fires had burned about three million hectares of land, destroyed hundreds of homes and structures and caused 16 deaths, including 12 firefighters.
Australasian Inter-Service Incident Management System (AIIMS).
Seventeen years earlier, in July 1983, only a few months after the catastrophic Ash Wednesday bushfires, the Forests Commission Victoria (FCV) ran a three-day staff workshop to review the bushfire season.
The formation of the Department of Conservation, Forests, and Lands (CFL) had only just been announced at the time of the meeting.
Speakers at the workshop addressed a wide range of issues and formulated actions on crew safety, management of resources, firefighting tactics, shift changes, equipment, skills training, communications, liaison with other agencies, logistics, use of aircraft for reconnaissance and firebombing, as well as weather and fire behaviour forecasting.
Included in the review was improving command-and-control arrangements at large bushfires.
Traditionally, District Foresters were responsible for any fire on State forests and National Parks and took overall control as “Fireboss”. It was an entirely normal arrangement to have a senior FCV Fireboss in the field directing operations.
While it had its advantages, the Fireboss role based in the field had some serious shortcomings too, particularly if the fire escalated or became fast moving and complex.
In Victoria, the Country Fire Authority (CFA), who are mostly volunteers, are responsible for bushfires on private land and operated independently from the FCV on separate radio frequencies and under a well-entrenched and familiar group structure.
Cross agency issues sometimes arose within the interfaces or “marginal mile”; so FCV and CFA liaison officers were appointed for joint incidents. This arrangement worked well enough for small events but was quickly overwhelmed during large and complex bushfires.
The Forests Commission had begun experimenting with new fire control arrangements from the mid-1970s based on shared experiences and long-standing relationships with the US Forest Service.
Different control arrangements had been trialled at Cann River and Warburton during the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires.
Following the 1983 review, the Forests Commission consciously shifted its approach to suppression of large fires on Victoria’s State forests and National Parks.
During 1984, Kevin Monk from the FCV’s Fire Protection Branch travelled on a Churchill Fellowship to California to study the United States National Incident Management System (NIMS). He brought back the NIMS documentation and developed a unique Victorian version, which became known as the Large Fire Organisation (LFO). Importantly, the LFO was designed to be scalable; from Level 1 for simple local incidents, through to Level 3 for complex multi-agency and campaign bushfires.
By the summer of 1984-85, the LFO was being progressively adopted with the establishment of dedicated Incident Management Teams (IMTs) complete with Incident Controllers, Operations, Planning and Logistics units. Staff were identified and trained within the new regions of Conservation, Forests, and Lands (CFL).
Athol Hodgson was appointed CFL’s first Chief Fire Officer (1984-87) and was a strong advocate for the new emergency arrangements. In 1984, he led a high-level delegation of Australian bushfire controllers on a study tour to the USA and Canada. Brian Potter, Chief of the CFA (1985-91), was on the tour.
The bushfires of January 1985 in the alps which occurred from Mt Buffalo to Mt Selwyn, were the first major test for the newly formed Department of CFL. It was also the largest deployment of firefighting aircraft in Australia up to that time, including 20 helicopters and 16 fixed-wing aircraft from the FCV, Australian Defence Force and National Safety Council of Australia (NSCA). The LFO was given a thorough test run at these fires.
Later Chief Fire Officers, Barry Johnston (1987-90), Rod Incoll (1990-96) and Gary Morgan (1996-2005) maintained the momentum for changes to command-and-control arrangements at large bushfires in Victoria.
Significantly, in 1986, the Victorian Emergency Management Act provided for a single controller to be appointed for each joint CFA/CFL bushfire.
Later in 1988 the Australian Association of Rural Fire Authorities adopted the principals embodied in LFO and NIMS.
The LFO became the forerunner of the Australasian Inter-Service Incident Management System (AIIMS) which was adopted nationally in the early 1990s under the newly formed Australasian Fire Authorities Council (AFAC) representing all Australian and New Zealand fire services, and land management agencies with fire responsibilities.
AIIMS was jointly adopted by the CFA and CFL in 1991 with the intent of bringing emergency services together under one control system with common terminology.
An Agreement was signed by the Chief Officers of the CFA and NRE (formerly CFL) on 14 November 1997 to give more detail on joint firefighting arrangements.
In addition to NRE, there were a couple of advocates, but it’s also fair to say there was strong resistance from some quarters to shifting from entrenched arrangements and adopting AIIMS, and it took many years to make the full transition for some agencies and jurisdictions.
The operation, training and slow uptake of AIIMS by the CFA were some of the key issues identified at the Coronial Inquest into the deaths of five CFA firefighters at Linton in December 1998.
After the Linton findings, Gary Morgan, the Chief Fire Officer of the Victorian Department of Natural Resources (NRE), and Richard Rawson, Director of the Forest Service, were strong advocates and eventually persuasive that all CFA volunteer forest fighters should undertake compulsory minimum skills training. They also urged the CFA to move away from its established group structure at fires involving both organisations.
The 2000 deployment.
The relationship between Australia and particularly Victorian forest firefighters and their north American counterparts was strong. Over many decades there had been high-level delegations and study tours to the US from Australia, and vice versa. The innovation and joint development of worldclass fire equipment at the Altona workshops and at Boise in Idaho is just one example.
After midnight on 3rd August 2000, Gary Morgan, was contacted by Rick Gale from the American Department of Interior asking for his help. This was a personal request from Rick resulting from a strong relationship forged after Gary’s earlier trip to make a keynote presentation in Canada.
Four days later, Tony Edgar, NRE’s Gippsland Regional Manager from Victoria, and Murray Dudfield from New Zealand, arrived at the National Inter-Agency Fire Centre (NIFC) in Boise Idaho to assess the need and offer the type of support that Australia and New Zealand could provide.
A formal request was then made through the American Embassy in Canberra to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The fire situation in America was urgent and things moved at breakneck speed, and by 10 August a new and unprecedented high-level agreement was signed with the Americans by Gary Morgan and the NRE Secretary, Chloe Munro, on behalf of all Australian and NZ fire agencies.
A taskforce of 79 experienced firefighters was hurriedly assembled and mobilised the very next day on 11 August 2000. They included field operations, aviation, IMT and logistics specialists.
Air travel, accommodation, passports and immigration clearance were mostly handled by NRE. Other essential requirements included passing a medical examination and a fitness assessment. The US embassy arranged a waiver of the normal visa arrangements for the incoming firefighters
All the firefighters needed to have AIIMS accreditation, so most were drawn from NRE and Parks Victoria where AIIMS had been in use for some time. Others came from New Zealand, Tasmania, NSW and Western Australia. Two personnel from a CFA Industrial Brigade (Myrtleford HVP) and ex NRE firefighters also went.
After orientation, issuing equipment and some training at Boise, the first taskforce was split into three groups and operated across bushfire theatres in Idaho, northwest Montana and southwest Montana.
There were a few hurdles the newcomers needed to quickly adjust to.
Overcoming jetlag,
Slight language, cultural and accent barriers,
Learning some new terminology,
Discovering about fire behaviour in different forest and fuel types.
The sun was in the south at midday and the shadows moved the wrong way,
Remembering old imperial measurements like acres, miles and gallons,
Driving on the wrong side of the road,
Prevalence of firearms,
Using a national radio network,
Stricter discipline during briefings,
Sleeping on the ground in small tents,
The work/rest cycle of 12-hour days and 14-day tours,
Yellow school buses to ferry crews,
The vast scale of the operations,
Smoke jumpers and hotshot crews,
Different hand tools such as the Pulaski, and,
Learning how to deploy fire shelters (shake and bakes).
Despite these minor differences, mutual respect quickly developed, and the Australians and New Zealanders fitted right in, particularly for those familiar with AIIMS.
The first taskforce completed their assignment a month later on 15 September 2000, which included a short mid-tour break.
A second taskforce of 17 aviation and logistics experts was mostly deployed to Missoula in Montana for 21 days from 15 August to 5 September 2000.
Understandably, there had been few “speed bumps” and many lessons were learned, but this first deployment was judged a resounding success. A thorough review by Rick Sneeuwjagt from the Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) in Western Australia led to refinements for future exchanges.
The goodwill and gracious hospitality shown to the Australians and NZ firefighters by both US fire staff and the American community during their five-week deployment cemented some lasting personal and professional friendships.
The first reciprocal deployment to Australia of north American firefighters and Incident Management Teams was in early 2003 to the major alpine fires in eastern Victoria. This was also the first time that the Kiwis had helped in Victoria.
Without doubt, the common terminology and compatibility between AIIMS and American Incident Management Systems ensured smooth operations and interchange of staff.
Exchanges of Australian and NZ firefighters across the hemispheres are now regular and routine, but they were only made possible by the pioneering work done by the Forests Commission during the 1980s to develop AIIMS and continually advocate for its adoption across Australia, and across the ditch.
Thank you to those who contributed to this story including Gary Morgan, Tony Edgar, Peter West, Peter Ford, Lex Wade, Geoff Pike and Mike Leonard.
Source: Peter West
From Back. Richard Bourke, Glen Mawson, Peter West, Grange Jephcott, Ion Worrell, Denis Mathews, Scott Armstrong, Shaun Lawlor. At Coeur d’Alene in Idaho. Source: Peter West
Valley Complex. Source: Peter WestBlackfeet Crew. Source: Peter West
Valley Complex. Source: Peter West
Northern Rockies Fires Aviation Group in Missoula. Front row: Leith Mckenzie, Mike Fitzgerald, Hayden Biggs, Jan Radic, John Appleby (Wombat), Rob Jarvis Back row: Colin Smith, Stephen Walls, Paul McDiarmid, Jim Whelan, Richard Alder, Bryan Rees. Andrew Matthews and Peter Cuthbertson remained in Boise to with the line scanners and Barry Marsden stayed with the equipment cache. Photo: Stephen Walls, CFA
The Age, 12 August 2000. Source: Peter West
The AIIMS movers-and-shakers. The Chief Fire Officers. L-R: Athol Hodgson (1984-87), Stan Duncan (1980-84), Rod Incoll (1990-96), Gary Morgan (1996-2005), Barry Johnson (1987-1990). Source: FCRPA Collection.
Bitterroot National Forest in Montana on August 6, 2000. Photo taken by John McColgan a fire behaviour analyst from Fairbanks, Alaska.
This contraption is thought to have been developed in the FCV radio workshops at Surrey Hills.
It’s basically a STC vehicle radio which has been mounted on a backpack frame and powered by a heavy lead-acid battery.
The backpack frame was manufactured at the Altona fire equipment development centre. A considerable number of these radio units were made and distributed to the field.
One of the quirkier items in the DEECA Altona Museum Collection. 24 A/110.
I have no idea what sort of car this is, or what year these photos were taken, but this impressive motor is thought to have belonged to Hugh Robert Mackay.
Mackay had been Secretary to the Royal Commission into forests between 1897 and 1901. He had compiled its reports and later drafted the Bill on which the 1907 Forest Act was based.
He was subsequently appointed as the first Conservator of the new State Forest Department (SFD) in 1907 and remained until the formation of the Forests Commission Victoria (FCV) in 1919 when Owen Jones was recruited from England.
This snazzy car was thought to have been used in his travels around Victoria.
Victoria’s Forests & Bushfire Heritage 