By Emma Sun
MORE than 40 CFA members from around the Yarra Ranges took part in a fire safety exercise in Mount Evelyn last Monday night.
The crew, from brigades including Mount Evelyn, Seville, Hillcrest and Wandin, tested their fire response management in the more fire-prone parts of the area, particularly the Warburton Trail.
Mount Evelyn brigade captain Jim Armstrong said the exercise was an important way to learn crucial fire safety strategies. “We need to set up a traffic management system with the trucks so they’re only going one way along the trail, so we tested how that works,” he said.
“It was really about identifying, in the exercise, what life and property would become endangered, should there be a fire in that area and what strategies we might employ to protect it.”
As part of the exercise, members took part in prediction mapping, which saw them calculating how far a fire would spread within the span of an hour, two hours and three hours.
“We could then use that to decide what actions we need to take, what warnings we need to get out and who to, in those time frames,” Mr Armstrong said.
“We’re really focused on warnings for the community more than ever.”
He said the exercise provided necessary preparation for the new and old members of the fire brigade, so that when an incident does occur, members would know what to do straightaway.
“Every week, we do some sort of training and it’s usually based on something like this,” he said.
“Particularly during summer, we like to get around Mount Evelyn, come up with a likely scenario and run it through as if it were happening, so we can see what strategies we can come up with to build some fire plans around the fire risk areas in the township.
“If there are shortfalls in our planning, we like to be able to highlight those in training rather than find out in a real fire situation.”
