By Nicole Williams and Danielle Galvin
SIX suspicious fires threatened countless homes at Pakenham Upper in hot conditions on Thursday afternoon.
The Gazette arrived on scene at 3pm, shortly before police arrived, to find fires burning along Army Road and both sides of Pakenham Road.
Police and the CFA Fire Investigation Squad are investigating the deliberately fires, which burnt grass and bushland near Army Road, Pakenham Road and Reynolds Road.
Incident Controller Steven Hicks said crews quickly got five of the fires under control but one spiralled out of control.
“There were six in six different places down Army Road and Pakenham Road,” he said.
“We caught five quickly but one just got away because it was in an inaccessible spot.”
“Our biggest concern was that we knew someone was lighting the fires so were there others we missed?” he said.
“There was a lot of uncertainly of whether we had got them all.”
“The risk was that if we had the wind or conditions predicted, it would have done a lot more damage and travelled a lot further,” Mr Hicks said.
Twenty CFA crews, from as far as Wonthaggi and the Mornington Peninsula, were on the scene at the height of the blaze and stayed until 9pm and a skeleton crew remained through Friday to ensure the area was safe.
The fires burnt a total of 10 hectares of land, with the biggest fire scorching five hectares.
“There were definitely houses under threat,” Mr Hicks said.
“The guys did a great job to stop it where they did.”
CFA District 8 operations manager Trevor Owen said it was a difficult situation.
“It was a complex fire in that there were multiple fires happening simultaneously which made it pretty challenging,” he said.
“It was further complicated by the fire that started at the metal recycling plant. It was all in the Pakenham area so we were moving resources into the Pakenham community to get on top of the various incidents.”
“We are most concerned about it being a deliberate act,” Mr Owen said.
“It’s a growing concern, that these sort of deliberate acts can cause damage and risk to life. It’s up to the community to work with police and fire authorities to bring these people in.”
Cardinia group officer Phil Craig said aircraft water bombers helped suppress the fires, a strike team from the south-east group and fire crews from Mount Eliza, Hampton Park, Pearcedale and others.
“It is a credit to the crews, it could have been a lot worse particularly if the wind had been stronger,” he said.
“They were very diligent and did a first class job.”
Senior Sergeant Trevor Vondrasek said there were a large amount of CFA and police resources deployed to the area.
He said a relief centre was set up at the Pakenham hall.
An arson chemist has attended the scene and Cardinia CIU was assisting the CFA fire investigation squad who are conducting an inquiry into the fires.
“There was no damage to properties or injuries sustained,” he said.
At the height of the fires, Pakenham Road, Reynolds Road and Army Road were closed to traffic and the following morning closures remained in place at Lilliput Lane and Reynolds Road.
Anyone with information should contact Cardinia Crime Investigation Unit on 5945 2500 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
