Day 2-Travel to Alexandra, Longwood fire

I was up at 06:00 following a coolish night. It wasn't actually overly cold in the tent, but I could feel a cold draft through the bottom of the stretcher I slept on.
Shower, breakfast and truck check, as we had received the truck back from the Southern crew who were using Gungahlin 10 for the previous 3 days. We also stocked up our food packs for the day.
Today would be another half day or so of travel to the Longwood Berry's Lane fire. We would be based near Alexandra.  It has been suggested this is turning into a 2-2-1 deployment; 2 day travel, 2 day fireground, 1 day travel home.
We got on the road by 07:00 and drove an hour up the road to Tallangatta. Here we attended the staging area for the Walwa fire, where the trucks were serviced and Michael took a turn driving for 2 hours from 10:00 to about 12:00, where we reached Swanpool for a 20 min lunch break, then back on the road again for Alexandra.
While we were travelling, we passed through many areas that have been devastated by the Longwood fire, some areas where 2 out of 3 houses passed had been destroyed by fire in the last 2 week. It was pretty confronting given that some of these people have lost everything in these fires.
We arrived at the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning depot, where we were briefed on the fire situation in the area before headed off to our accommodation at Alexandra Adventure camp.
We got our rooms and grabbed a bed before being tasked at the camp and finally getting onto the fireground for a few hours at the end of the day.
We were tasked to travel in convoy with 2 other units to check out some identified hotspots on the mountains along Brooks Cutting Rd above the Goulburn River. We only had a very narrow and windy 4WD track, which really tested my nerve as the driver but I managed. It also tested Les's nerve with his previous experience with steep inclines. It also didn't help that Gungahlin 10 (GUN10) has a tendency to overheat on hills; it was a slow trip back as a result of this.
We ended up finishing out area, waiting for the other units to finish putting out some smokers they discovered before heading back for dinner via a couple of areas that required checks for smokers and hotspots.
After dinner, a group of our striketeam went for a swim in the river down the road from the basecamp, but I stayed around to call home and then to bed by 22:00.Läs mer