BY karen poh
SOARING summer temperatures have prompted the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) and Parks Victoria to prepare local residents for the fire season.
Summer fire safety information sessions will be held throughout January. The one-hour sessions will include advice on topics such as preparing for the fire season, personal protection, safeguarding property, and what to expect in a bushfire.
Each year, firefighters attend more than 200 grass and scrub fires in the Melbourne metropolitan area, ranging from fires covering a few square metes to life-threatening blazes that destroy many hectares of grass and scrub and cause thousands of dollars worth of property damage.
MFB senior station officer Ian Munro said home owners whose properties bordered the many parks and grasslands around Melbourne needed to be prepared.
“The people we’re targeting are mainly those whose properties back on to parks and reserves,” he said.
“For instance, people whose properties back on to the Maribyrnong valley, Brimbank Park, and around Taylors Lakes, along the edge where open grasslands and the urban area meet.”
Other areas of concern were down on the beachfront at Altona, Williamstown and particularly Seaholme, around Cherry Lake, and the reserves at Laverton, he said.
A running fire spread rapidly, Mr Munro said. “Anywhere the urban settlement backs on to large areas of open grassland where you can get a running fire, we’re potentially not going to have time to pull it up before it gets in among the houses.
“There isn’t going to be terribly long. At tops, we might have 30 minutes notice, but more likely there’s going to be five or 10,” he said.
Some house fires were caused by sparks or embers from a grass or scrub fire and home owners could minimise this risk, Mr Munro added.
“We’re going to suggest that they have a strip of grass mowed along their back fence and that they check all their eaves and gutters to make sure they’re sealed up and leaves and rubbish are removed from them.”
Mr Munro cited the 2003 Canberra bushfires as an example.
Most of the houses destroyed there had been set on fire by embers landing in gardens, igniting mulch or other material and spreading to the house, he said.
Residents also needed to decide in advance whether they wanted to stay and defend their property or leave early.
Leaving at the last minute would hinder fire trucks attending the scene, Mr Munro said.
“If people are going to leave, they should leave early in the day – not wait until the fire is at their back fence.
“That would mean they’re going to try and go out as we’re trying to come in, and it isn’t going to mix in some of the narrow streets, particularly at some of the newer estates.”
People would need to have a garden hose that could reach all around the house, make sure they had proper clothing like long trousers, long sleeves, a hat, and some sort of goggles or glasses to keep the grit out of their eyes, because there would be a high wind when the fire came through.
“When the fire comes to them they should shelter inside the house because that will be the safest place. Once the fire has passed, they can come out and use their hose, a wet mop or buckets of water to put out smouldering spots from the embers,” Mr Munro said.
The fire safety information sessions will be held at 10am on Monday 14 January, 7pm on Thursday 17 January, and 10am on Sunday 20 January at the Brimbank Park conference room in Keilor Park Drive. For further information and bookings, contact the MFB Western Zone on 9665 4538.
