By KATH GANNAWAY
UPPER Yarra communities awoke to Watch and Act alerts on Sunday morning as a fast-moving grassfire in Gladysdale spread into scrub.
By noon the two-week-old Powelltown fire that started in a logging coup on the Australia Day weekend had also flared up as emergency resources were stretched with dozens of fires erupting across the state.
Gladysdale resident Jodi Dyball said she and her partner went outside after receiving the first alert just after 8am.
“If we hadn’t got the alert we wouldn’t have gone outside. The alert saying ‘0 kilometres’ from where we are made us go outside and have a look,” she said.
They didn’t have to go far. The fire was just up the road and she said they were very grateful to be able to get in quickly and evacuate their horses before the fire spread and the area was locked off.
Local DEPI contractors, brothers John and Vince Marchese from VJ Plant Hire in Gladysdale also got the call early from the Woori Yallock Incident Control Centre and were able to move dozers and excavators onto the fire ground as air bombers and CFA, DEPI and VicForest fire crews poured into the Little Yarra Valley.
Local crews from around the Yarra Valley and Yarra Ranges were supported by strike teams from as far away as the Mornington Peninsula.
By around 10.30am when the Mail was allowed into the area crews were blacking out along the Yarra Junction-Noojee road where the fire started and in nearby paddocks, scrub and along a heavily-treed creekbed just a couple of hundred metres from a house and farm buildings.
Water bombers had also been called in early from Healesville and Olinda and were able to maximise their impact with good water supplies nearby.
Incident Controller David Nugent told the Mail late on Sunday afternoon people needed to stay aware of conditions and continue to monitor the fire activity in their area.
He said the Powelltown Learmonth Road was spotting outside the containment lines established over the past week or so and was burning in steep, tall forest.
Neither fire was threatening communities at that point.
He said at the peak of fire-fighting activity 150 fire-fighters were on the ground and around 40 to 50 units.
John Marchese, who has had over 25 years’ experience as a machinery operator in bushfires said the response was well organised and executed.
“We had a dozer up there putting in containment lines and taking out dangerous trees,” he said.
Fire-fighters on the ground looked on with admiration at one point as Vince Marchese positioned his excavator, nudging gently as a huge burning gum threatened to fall helped by wind gusts along the creek bed.
Mr Marchese said the tree was sparking with the potential to start spot fires in dry trees and leaf litter at a nearby house and kilometres away in bushland, as well as being potentially deadly to fire-fighters.
He praised the response from emergency services.
“On a day like yesterday (Sunday) it could have turned really bad. I got the phone call from John Carter (DEPI) at the ICC in Woori and luckily the resources all turned up pretty quickly,” he said.
“DEPI and the CFA had 20 or 30 trucks there within an hour; they’re working well together these days,” he said.
The Gladysdale fire burnt out 26 hectares of grassland and scrub and the Powelltown fire has burnt through 428 hectares of forest.
Woori Yallock ICC said on Monday containment lines had been established around both fires, but that crews were still on site.
Up to date information and warnings can be accessed at emergency.vic.gov.au, on the FireReady App or phone the Victorian Bushfire Information Line on 1800 240 667.
