My mother is in the CFA Sarsfield brigade...we spent several days before christmas camped at horseyard flat, just me and the kids. Then spent christmas at our mums place.......on Saturday we packed up and evacuated, the most annoying thing was tourists were still heading east along the hwy to Mallacoota and Wigan Inlet.
All the locals had put their fire plans into action, and most had left. My Mum got her partner into Bairnsdale, then went out with the brigade into the fire field on Sunday and Monday. They were promised 7 strike teams on Monday to assist. Those strike teams didnt eventuate. They were sent to Wigan Inlet, to protect tourists down at the campground. That left the Sarsfield and Mt Taylor brigade to manage a huge area.
Just spoke to Mum, she's pretty sure her place has gone as one of the houses in her road was on fire at 11pm last night, two tankers reponded, but it got too hot for them. She said in all her years in the CFA, she's never seen anything like it...it was like armegeddon.....so when you get comments like this "typical over reaction to some hot days in modern society , obviously anyone should take precautions due to weather but to say no one should go there as a blanket statement is just ridiculous IMO. Different if there are already fires in the area.... " Then you see tourists on the ABC news saying that they payed for their holiday, so their not staying away.....how selfish can you get?.......Tankers that could've been bettter used elsewhere, had to help these people get out....
Several of her Brigade members have lost their properties......
