By Mitchell Clarke
The man who led Blaze Aid efforts in Bunyip has shifted focus to the next recovery mission, establishing camps in fire affected communities across Victoria and South Australia.
Bunyip BlazeAid founder and coordinator John Anderson led 600 volunteers to clear 300 kilometres of damaged fencing and re-fence 150 kilometres after the Bunyip bushfires in March last year.
Mr Anderson has established a Blaze Aid camp site on the fire ravaged Kangaroo Island, based out of Parndana and has appointed a co-ordinator to lead the recovery effort.
While works aren’t yet safe to begin due to continued bushfire activity, it’s anticipated a number of volunteers will put their hands up to help out.
“From Kangaroo Island, we’ve had a great response, so we’ll hopefully have a number of volunteers wanting to get involved,” Mr Anderson said.
Meanwhile, he’s turned his attention to East Gippsland where he intends to set up three or four base camps.
“I’ve been up here scoping where the camps are going to go,” he explained.
“We’ve identified two possible locations but they’re not yet confirmed.
“We’ll probably end up establishing a number of camps though because the area to cover is just massive and we can’t have volunteers travelling 100 kilometres a day.”
Mr Anderson said the bushfire crisis was a “magnitude” that’s never been experienced before, in terms of area destroyed.
“The geographical spread of these fires is just unbelievably large,” he added.
After travelling to the areas of Buchan, Sarsfield and Swifts Creek and surveying the damage, he’s acknowledged recovery efforts will likely take six months, at a minimum.
“There’s been extensive fencing lost through that region.
“Fencing is only one part of the recovery effort but we’ll do our part and what we can.”
Despite having his hands full, Mr Anderson will return home to Bunyip to load up hay to transport back to East Gippsland.
“You can’t stop, there’s just so much happening at the moment,” he said.
“This does help people get back on their feet, and it’s a good feeling because you know something positive is going to happen after all this devastation.”
Volunteers are welcome to attend the camp sites and assist in the clean-up.
“They need to be prepared to camp on site, they’ll receive three feeds a day and they’ll be doing some work that’ll be very rewarding,” he added.
