Pomonal volunteers reflect on the devastating February fires

Nothing Left - Photo by Pomonal Volunteer Keith Ward following the fires

 

Pomonal volunteers have reflected on the devastating bushfires that destroyed 45 homes in their small rural community in February this year.

 

Pomonal Fire Brigade Captain Steve Field, then 1^st Lieutenant, initially thought the predicted Catastrophic conditions were going to ease with light rain in the morning but conditions quickly worsened. Steve’s role on the day was to deploy trucks from the station.

“A band of lightning came through with a strike of lightning hitting the top of the Grampians where the fire started,” Steve said.

“As the storm progressed through with the heat and the wind, conditions were not in our favour at all.

“We tried to pull the fire up, but the fuel load joins the township to the national park.”

Steve said one of the greatest challenges was ensuring the safety of those who stayed behind.

“We were hoping all the residents had evacuated, the VicEmergency app did a great job. But for those that stayed, that was the greatest challenge to find out where they were,” Steve said.

For Matt Venn in his role as Deputy Group Officer, preparation had started days before with the Ararat Group of Brigades preparing for a hot day response.

“The day before we were asked to have a strike team available and I put my hand up to be strike team leader, but I never thought it was going to be for a response to my own town as humans do,” said Matt.

Following Matt being deployed to the fire that was about to hit the town, his role involved putting a plan in place to try and save the homes.

“We knew the western side of the town was going to be impacted first, so we had to do what we could to try and save the houses. We knew we couldn’t stop it from coming in,” he said.

Matt urges communities in high fire risk areas to leave early as your safest option as he reflects on the ferocity of the fire that day being fanned by cyclone like winds.

“Everything was burning, there just wasn’t anything that wasn’t capable of burning,” he said.

“If you are staying, thinking you are going to save your house, think about how hard it is on the people you leave behind if you don’t make it.

“You’re really rolling the dice if you think you can save your house and your life is more important.”

 

Submitted by	Courtney Walker