Five years after bushfires ripped through the heart of Melbourne’s north, ceremonies to award national emergency service medals to volunteers who spent days at a time on the frontline of Victoria’s worst disaster have been postponed until April.
Instead, the unsung heroes of the Country Fire Authority are on standby awaiting their next call to arms as the state swelters in some of the hottest weather experienced since that fatal day.
Without coastal breezes to break the heat, temperatures in Melbourne’s north have hovered around the 40-degree mark for days, and Victoria’s Fire Commissioner is warning the state is tinder dry. “We have got conditions that are dry and hot and don’t need wind to push fires along,” Craig Lapsley said last week.
‘‘We need to be very conscious about our levels of preparedness, our readiness levels.”
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Local brigades and police are asking residents and business owners to remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity.
Warnings have been issued about the use of lawnmowers and even children’s motorcycles.
“All it takes is metal to hit a rock and drive a spark,” Craigieburn CFA first lieutenant Chris Gray said. “It’s good to have an extinguisher on hand.”
Mr Gray appealed to people to keep alert for unusual or suspicious behaviour along the roadsides. “We’re obviously dealing with a number of fires recently that were deliberately lit.”
Whittlesea crime investigation unit detectives charged a 15-year-old boy last week after a grassfire in Epping that threatened businesses along Harvest Home Road on January 21.
The Broadmeadows boy has been charged with one count of criminal damage by fire, intentionally and recklessly causing a bushfire, and recklessly lighting a fire in open air during a period of fire danger. He has been bailed to appear at a children’s court at a later date.
A 16-year-old girl was also questioned by police after CCTV footage showed two teenagers and a child in the area at the time the fire started. The teenagers turned themselves in to police.
