By Taylah Eastwell
In the Hills, heroes don’t wear capes.
They wear fluro vests, accessorised only by safety goggles, muddy workboots and a trusty, well-oiled chainsaw – and they’d probably prefer the more humble title of ‘volunteer’.
A group of these selfless, high-vis wearing volunteers have worked tirelessly over the past few weekends to help clear trees on properties across the Dandenong Ranges following the wild storms on 9 June.
Known as Help the Hills – Dandenong Ranges Taskforce, the group was established by Emerald firies who realised the extreme levels of “damage and carnage” on local properties after responding to callouts on the gusty night of the superstorm.
Emerald Fire Brigade captain and Help the Hills organiser Paul Yandle said the group was born after members “realised there were a lot of other people, particularly older and vulnerable people, that just had a mammoth task ahead of them trying to clean up”.
“Instead of a small crew of us going from place to place we thought, ‘why don’t we put something bigger and better together for the community’,” Mr Yandle said.
With one of the brigade members an avid IT guru, a Facebook page was formed, calling on community-minded volunteers to help clear trees, cut through fallen wood or drag branches off properties.
The group now has almost 1600 likes and has a reach of around 120,000, with many eager helpers and businesses travelling from near and far to help with the clean-up each Saturday and Sunday.
“The response from the community has been amazing the last three weekends. We’ve had about 250 people help out, on average around 50 or 60 each day,” Mr Yandle said.
“They are all just community volunteers and we’ve had some really good support from local machine operators with excavators and machinery. So many companies have offered their time, fuel and equipment to come out and help us, which we have really appreciated,” he said.
“These are eight to ten hour days out there on a chainsaw or dragging branches. The community spirit is just incredible.
The sophisticated operation works by residents filling in an online form, accessible through the Help the Hills Facebook page, which alerts the voluntary crews of the need for works at certain properties. Jobs are then categorised in an Excel spreadsheet to allow workers to be assigned.
Volunteers become involved by turning up at the “staging area” at Pepi’s Land netball courts, just off Beaconsfield-Emerald Road, where they register and receive a full safety briefing before being matched into working bee groups.
“Some people might have a chainsaw and others don’t but are happy to drag branches, so we group them up. CFA members conduct safety inspections to make sure the work area is safe before sending crews in,” Mr Yandle said.
CFA members from neighbouring brigades, including Belgrave South, Kallista, Drouin, and Pakenham have also been involved in maintaining safety during the working bees and liaising with residents.
“We’ve had about 85 requests for assistance and we’ve got through about 45 of those so far. Some of these jobs are huge. Some have 19, 20 odd trees down. There is one property between Emerald and Monbulk that was hit by fire last season and have now been hit by the storm and they’ve got over 100 trees down,” Mr Yandle said.
Mr Yandle said emergency crews, council, contractors and utility companies did an “amazing job” clearing roads, restoring access and dangerous trees, but the Help the Hills taskforce goes beyond the front gate, helping residents tidy up their own properties.
The taskforce has had many helping hands in its short time of operation, including four wheel drive clubs, arborists, excavation companies and Disaster Relief Australia.
“We’ve had some fantastic support from Disaster Relief Australia, a national volunteer group made up of ex-service men and emergency service personnel. They’ve got some really great technical skills and volunteer their time to help after disasters. They’ve got some arborists who helped us to do some technical jobs like dropping dangerous trees to get them on the ground so we can follow up,” Mr Yandle said.
An eastern suburbs based excavation company donated a 6.5 tonne excavator last weekend to help clear a property, and a tree solution company provided their time and expertise to dismantle a number of large, hazardous trees on Tuesday 6 July.
“Because we are CFA, the main focus of what we are trying to do is help people with mountains of green waste. We are very concerned about green waste around peoples homes come fire season. If you think about how many trees came down, it is a significant fire risk. We are just helping people get stuff from their property to their front nature strip, cutting branches into rounds, that sort of thing,” Mr Yandle said.
“Even a month on there is so much to do. We haven’t really even put a dint in it yet,” he said.
Emerald and District Rotary are also on board with the initiative, having sorted out insurance cover for all volunteers.
Emerald Rotary Chair of Community Services, Emma Clark said it “became evident in the initial stages that there would need to be some insurance” to cover the vast operation.
“We checked with the board and got permission to extend our insurance, which meant that on the first weekend we were able to get this all up and running and provide our QR code for checking in, too,” Ms Clark said.
Rotary members have also taken to the ground to help with labour, while others delivered home-made sausage rolls and cakes to volunteers.
“It’s been a great to-and-fro partnership, it has just got bigger and better and there are so many connections being promoted with all sorts of groups. It is sad sometimes that it has to come to these situations for people to help each other out,” Ms Clark said.
But Mr Yandle says the CFA won’t be putting the chainsaws down for a while yet.
“We will keep going as long as the volunteers keep coming,” he said.
Anyone interested in volunteering their time is encouraged to check the Help the Hills – Dandenong Ranges Taskforce Facebook page and turn up to the staging area at the Emerald Netball Complex anytime after 8am any Saturday and Sunday.
