By BEN CAMERON
FIVE firefighting trucks and an aircraft will be sent to blazes within the Cardinia Shire’s District Eight region this fire season on extreme fire danger days.
Pakenham Fire Brigade Operations Officer Jim Dore said local brigades were prepared with the changes in place for Code Red days, despite local bushland currently looking “fairly volatile”.
“We’re pretty much on the ball and ready to go,” he said.
“On days of high fire danger, five fighting appliances will be sent to every call and an aircraft to every call.
“Normally we’d respond with two or three.”
A helicopter from Emerald or aircraft from Moorabbin would be called.
“We’ve got two helicopters that have got buckets,” he said.
“And the Elvis … is only 45 minutes away.
“As soon as we get a call, the aircraft will be in the air.
“We’re working on the theory we’re going to hit it hard and hit it quick.”
He said pre-summer test burns in Gembrook revealed “the fire danger is fairly high this year”.
“Flame heights were normally around 300mm, they finished up with flame heights of two metres,” he said.
“In the scrub it’s fairly volatile out there. But the CFA is well and truly prepared and our volunteers are ready to go.”
Meanwhile, Victoria Police Senior Sergeant Greg Addis said additional vehicles would be deployed within the shire as part of its “prevention and detection” approach to the coming fire season.
“They are particularly tasked to go to specific areas that are identified as high risk,” he said.
“We also have some covert people out there, investigators, monitoring the high risk season until probably March at this stage.”
He urged the community to be on the lookout for suspicious behaviour.
“If you see something, say something,” he said.
“And it can be neighbours, it can be somebody that’s local, it doesn’t have to be somebody outside their area.
“Don’t discount suspicious behaviour.”
