bahahahahaha 1 ha burnt...talk about a traffic jam. end of augment about over resourcing. 
Interesting article in this weeks Courier...
The Courier Opinion
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Timely fire warning
As far as fire seasons go, the Hills is at the pointy end of this one.
The temperatures are picking up, and so are the winds, and the
forecasters are predicting plenty of hot and gusty conditions in
coming weeks.
Water restrictions are biting household gardens and it's becoming
harder to find lush green shelter belts around homes.
Two fires this week showed how quickly a spark can catch hold in dry
vegetation and threaten homes.
One in Bridgewater was ignited by an angle grinder and burnt through
the front yards of two homes and jumped the road to burn sections of
the front yards of another three houses.
The other fire was the fault of a spark from a passing train that
raced through a well kept buffer belt of slashed grass to burn out
the backyard of one house and threaten several others.
In a matter of minutes a tiny flame erupted into something monstrous
and it took a hard and fast response from the CFS to stop it in its
tracks.Notably it took carefully aimed loads of foam mixture from two water
bombers to take the sting out of the fires so volunteers could get
close enough to finish them off.
One neighbor told The Courier he was amazed when one drop effectively
put out half the fire and significantly reduced the radiant heat
beating down the street.
Water bombers are proving to be invaluable firefighting tools,
helping communities contain damage and save assets.
In steep terrain, as evident at the Bridgewater fire, aerial attacks
can mean the difference between a small incident and a big fire out
of the reach of ground crews.
But water bombers don't put out fires.
The Hills still rely on its CFS volunteers to manage the fire ground,
direct the bombers, put strategies in place and then hang around for
hours afterwards to black everything out and prevent flare-ups.Fire is reported in the region most days now and every time their
pagers go off a group of people give up their time to keep the rest
of the community safe.
The least that community can do in return is to reduce the amount of
preventable fires happening, and be prepared themselves.
Don't use angle grinders, welders and cutting tools on total fire ban
days without a permit. It's illegal.
Think twice about mowing and slashing on high risk days, keep your
machinery in good condition and keep decent firefighting equipment
nearby if you have to use machinery and tools.
The Hills are tinder dry at the moment and it doesn't take much to
start a bushfire.
The Courier [Permanent link to this item] [Opinion home] [Courier home].
Don't know about you lot, but were in the business of protecting lives and saving property. Given the location of this fire their was a serious level of risk to exposures which included a number of homes and the edge of Engelbrook reserve that was directly opposite. Upgrading it early to a 2nd alarm was appropriate, then once a reassessment was made with the threat reduced, brigades were stood down quickly.
Given the fact that this is a public forum, it would be my advice to keep some of the "2nd guess type opinions to yourselves or pass any legitimate concerns up the official channels. This sort of banter does not do us any favours.
