CFA’s new truck

By Tania Martin
MONBULK CFA’S rescue squad now has the latest tools to help save lives.
Premier John Brumby and Monbulk MP James Merlino on Sunday presented the unit with the keys on to a refurbished rescue vehicle.
Mr Merlino said the $50,000 refurbishment meant the Monbulk brigade would have access to a more modern vehicle to continue its outstanding services to the hills.
Mr Brumby said the brigade attended more than 40 rescue call-outs a year and the new truck would go a long way towards supporting that.
Monbulk CFA captain Peter Edyvane said the rescue unit was first started more than 25 years ago when there was an urgent need for the unit with a lack of resources in the hills.
Mr Edyvane said at the time it took more than an hour to get a rescue truck to an accident site. “We brought the gear and formed the rescue squad,” she said.
Mr Edyvane said the newly refurbished truck had been passed down from the Melton CFA brigade.
Both Mr Merlino and Mr Brumby also congratulated people in the Dandenongs for taking part in the state’s first Fire Action Week (11-18 October).
They also visited a house in Olinda where they spent the morning helping to clean up fire fuel.
“It is vital that we all work together to get our local communities prepared,” Mr Merlino said. He said the community asked a lot of its CFA brigades right across the Dandenongs. Brigades in the region had been working hard to prepare for the coming fire season.
“The Monbulk brigade has almost 100 members who attend about 100 incidents a year in local and surrounding communities and was actively involved in fighting the Black Saturday fires,” he said. “As we look back to Black Saturday it was the actions of the CFA in Upper Ferntree Gully that save the Dandenongs and every single resident understands that,” he said.
Mr Brumby said it was fantastic to see so many people out on the weekend cleaning up their gardens and reducing the fuel on the ground.
“I know it’s something you have always done really well right throughout the Dandenongs but we have never had such an effort as this year,” he said.