Smoke sighting at McLaren Vale 06/10/2006

[bajdas]

Did I do the correct thing this afternoon, or did I wate volunteers time.......serious question because I am doubting myself....maybe I should have got more information before calling, maybe let someone else call the smoke sighting in who was closer to the scene.....

This afternoon I was waiting for the bus at Commercial Road, Pt Noarlunga South to travel to work in the city. I saw black smoke beginning to show above the hills towards Onkaparinga Hills region, but I was not sure if this was near the Onkaparinga George park area. This area is dry brown grass and from experience is very steep at some places.

So I picked up my mobile telephone, dialed 112 and was connected to Fire Services. I described where I was, that the smoke was beyond Old Noarlunga township and I thought approx 5 kilometers away into the hills. No flame could be seen because the smoke was from over the hill.

The ComCen operator knew of a burnoff at Pimpala Road, but took the information in case other telephone calls with more details were received.

Very quickly handled and well done by the telephone operator & MFS ComCen operator.

The pager messages generated are:

14:34:54 06-10-06 HAPPY VALLEY *STOP CALL* SMOKE SIGHTING WAS BURNOFF AT McLAREN VALE. CREWS RETURNING TO STATION - H/V STATION 6/10/2006 2:34:37 PM

14:07:11 06-10-06 SHQ: CFSRES: MORPHETT VALE RESPOND INVESTGATE SMOKE ONKAPARINGA HILLS MAP 177 M10 SMOKE IN AREA OF ONKAPARING GEORGE. - ASSIST HAPPY VALLEY > 6/10/2006 14:06:58

14:00:43 06-10-06 MFS: RESPOND To 06/10/06 13:59,PIMPALA RD,ONKAPARINGA HILL, MAP 177 M 10 ,,SMK IN AREA OF ONKAPARINGA GORGE,8032*CFSRES:

Was I beginning paranoid with calling the smoke sighting in while outside of incident area, or 'is it better to be safe than sorry' and call the smoke sighting in ??

[medevac]

if theres any doubt then call it in.

 

[bittenyakka]

Personally I Think you did the right thing. It is better to be safe than sorry. But that said use common sense. I have herd of people in the city saying that the fog on mount lofty combined with the red lights on the TV towers is a bushfire and it usally results in a CFS crew driving round in the rain looking for a fire. of course on a day like to day it was a good call.

I believe most volenters would rather be called out for half an hour to a  "large campfire" than a large all day job.

[mengcfs]

Did the right thing. Comcens usually know of burnoffs (as you said with the Pimpala one) and can tell the caller they know about it and thanks anyway and if they don't know about it they respond appliances. No biggie really. I think we would all agree we would rather the small one than the big one. Imagine if everybody waited for someone else to call in a fire, "nah, she'll be right, someone would have called the fire brigade by now."

[medevac]

lol - have to say though, pimpala rd and onkaparinga gorge are quite some distance apart.... 

[bajdas]

lol - have to say though, pimpala rd and onkaparinga gorge are quite some distance apart.... 

Exactly ....because the CAD system works on a road location. We were trying locate a road in the vicinity of where I thought the smoke was coming from, so he could advise what was the appropriate resource....I would have loved to have my copy of OziExplorer open with the appropriate map.....but a guess was made from memory by the ComCen oeprator interpreting what information I provided.

Because the locations were so far apart, I think the MFS ComCen operator dispatched the crew after I got off the telephone to check the smoke out. My saving grace is that I could see the smoke over a hill & it was approx 8 km from where I was. So I assume anyone in the area could see the smoke.

But it interesting that if you cannot provide a road location where the incident is, then the call will take longer to detremine while additional information is received from the caller.

It really is interesting when you perform emeregncy call taking to hear it when you are the caller.

Thanks to the volunteers who responded to calm my mind.

[SA Firey]

Was actually a burnoff on Seaview Road McLaren Vale in the end confirmed by Deputy 2 on scene,but hey we always prefer a heads up to a possible biggy so you did what you thought was right

[Pixie]

So you are the person who beat me to making the phone call, I was sitting upstairs on the pc and looked out my window, and saw a collum of smoke rising out of what appears to be the southern side of the onkaparinga gorge, but by the time I got my mobile and ran back upstairs to try to work out exactly where it was happy valley had already been responded.

So basicaly, if you hadnt made the call, I would've!

[bajdas]

So you are the person who beat me to making the phone call, I was sitting upstairs on the pc and looked out my window, and saw a collum of smoke rising out of what appears to be the southern side of the onkaparinga gorge, but by the time I got my mobile and ran back upstairs to try to work out exactly where it was happy valley had already been responded.

So basicaly, if you hadnt made the call, I would've!

Thanks for that...I was in a quandry because I could not accurately locate where the source of the smoke was & I hate wasting a volunteers person time responding to calls.

[CyberCitizen]

Correct Thing To Do.