By RUSSELL BENNETT
Though summer is officially over for another year, a record-breaking March heatwave, and a fast-moving fire in Officer last week have delivered a stark reminder that the bushfire season is not. Gembrook professional firefighter Greg Harry knows the dangers of complacency about fire, and urges everyone in the local community to be informed about the potential threats facing their properties. He tells RUSSELL BENNETT about how he got his start as a firefighter, and what keeps him going.
ONE of the first things Greg Harry noticed when he took over the running of the Gembrook post office in 1985 was that the fire siren rang often during the day, with no-one in town to answer its call.
Most of the local firefighters had day jobs that took them out of the town, so Greg spoke with then Gembrook brigade captain Brian Petrie about how he could help.
He joined up, and at one of the first fires he turned out to, the only other person at the fire station was professional firefighter, and CFA volunteer Peter Cramer – who died tragically in this summer’s Tasmanian bushfires.
He quickly invited Greg to join up with what is now the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) as a seasonal firefighter, and the pair would go on to form a long-lasting friendship.
Greg would often have to close his shop to head around the corner to the fire station and jump on a truck. He even created a sign – “Gone to Fire’ – to hang on the post office’s front door.
“We did that just to get another person on the truck and that continued on … well it even happens today,” he said.
“But it used to be a one-person shop. Basically the town understood that the fire was more important than them getting their mail. They could come back for that later.”
Greg’s wife Ann had the first of their two sons in 1986, and another soon after. But by 1992 he had done a season with the ‘summer crew’ as a DSE firefighter.
“I then had to employ extra staff for the post office, once I realised I liked it, to allow me to do the three-month period in the DSE,” Greg said.
“I’ve jointly run a DSE role and a CFA role ever since.”
For at least that three months every year, Greg – a self-confessed “outdoors man” – can roll up his sleeves and really get down to work.
He uses the knowledge he’s gleaned from the DSE to help with his work in the CFA – including the development of a ‘fire simulation table’ to teach fire behaviour.
“Even though in the CFA we see a fire from start to finish, the DSE fires are a much bigger event, often on a bigger scale and a much more structured way of fighting a fire,” he said.
Within a few short years with the DSE, because of a relatively high turnover of staff, Greg became recognised as an experienced firefighter and was called upon to help with training others.
“That was probably the light switch moment for me,” he said.
“I said to myself: ‘Hey, I can see that if we do this training properly, we can do this whole job a lot better’.”
So, Greg set about furthering his own training – getting the diplomas and certificates, and doing the courses necessary to help set new standards of his own.
By 2000, Greg had taken on a role with Swinburne University as a full-time wildfire instructor.
“Part of my role was training DSE firefighters who had entered a traineeship. I would go back into DSE each year and focus on training their firefighters,” he said.
“It was the best of both worlds.
“I was getting on to the DSE fire-line and maintaining my qualifications and competencies.
“Plus, I was imparting what was a fair amount of knowledge by that stage.
“I’d been 10 years into the business and had a fair bit of fire knowledge.”
Greg has never been shy in passing on his knowledge and his own experiences to other firefighters.
“Some people hang on to that knowledge because they’re scared of being (professionally) overtaken,” he said.
“I just figure the best way I can make the fire-line work, and make it safer, is to pass on the knowledge to as many people as I possibly can.”
Greg’s role within the DSE soon switched up another gear – to the point where he was helping set the training standard throughout the organisation.
“They knew they had a gap because they had a lot of firefighters, but not a lot of instructors or educators. I was a professional educator,” he said.
“We had training, but we didn’t comply with national requirements. We didn’t comply with national units and all of that. I started that process for them – that training position from unstructured to structured, government-compliant training.”
Every year, in addition to his training role, Greg estimates he sees between 40 to 50 days on the fire-ground.
And he now serves as the state co-ordinator of the DSE’s recruit, or general firefighting training. He also plays a key role in laying out the training package for other DSE trainers to use.
“We have 100 Melbourne-based firefighters,” he said.
“I manage their training and then take a selection of those every two or three weeks (over summer) to become the go-to fire crew.
“If there’s a fire anywhere, we’d be the crew and I’d do it every three weeks.”
Greg has travelled both interstate and overseas to further his knowledge base and he prides himself on being involved with the DSE at the “cutting edge” of firefighter training.
“We showed the Americans our fire table,” he said.
“They thought it was a great idea so they’ll be using that concept somewhere in their own training.”
Part of Greg’s current role sees him develop the training undertaken by interstate and overseas firefighters who come to Victoria to fight a large-scale blaze.
“It never gets stale,” he said.
“And I come home every day inspired to go back and improve what we’re doing.
“We don’t get it right every time – we are very aware when we get something wrong and then we work on fixing it.”
He has learned more than his fair share of lessons on the fire-ground. One of the biggest?
“A very small fire can become a very big fire very quickly,” he said.
“I learned that in 2009.
“One of the other lessons that we continually learn – and it’s topical with what we’ve been through with our three recent deaths – is that there’s nothing worth dying for on our fire-lines.”
Greg said it was important to debunk the myth of always having to put a fire out, “no matter what”.
“Getting home safely is always more important,” he said.
“And we reckon most of the time nature puts the fires out – we just manage them.”
Greg also had some words of advice for home owners in bushfire-prone areas.
“I guess the thing they have to always think about – whether they’re in their house or in their car driving to somewhere else – is: “Would I like to be here with 20-metre flames in front of me?
“If the answer is ‘no’, then it’s time to leave.”
Greg said Victoria was on the path to becoming a fire-smart state, with residents continually learning about fire behaviour and the damage and devastation that fires could cause.
But he said: “We’re not there yet.
“Everybody has to take a share of the responsibility of being fire-ready.
“As a community, we get upset when there’s smoke on a Sunday.
“We get upset when the DSE does planned burning over Easter.
“The model in Florida – where they have a 365-day per year plan for fire – is that every day is a burn day. The residents just accept that they’re going to smell smoke in the air every day.”
Greg said the community needed to understand the importance of managing the landscape from a firefighting perspective.
“But the DSE can’t do it without the people and the other fire services,” he said.
“We can’t do it without the governments working with us.
“Fire management is a 365-day commitment from everyone in the state.
“We’re not in that world yet. It’s a world we’re moving towards, but we’re not there yet.”
