Day 1-Travel, Canberra to Colac Colac
17. januar, Australien ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C
Our first day of the 1-3-1 involves travel. We assembled at Fairbairn, ESA Headquarters at 10:30 to get underway. There was the briefing at 10:45 and we were on the road just after 11:00.
Not much happened on the travels.
We reached Gundagai just after 13:00 and a group of us ended up at the pub for lunch. An hour taken for lunch then back on the road by 14:00, arriving at the Colac Colac Caravan Park by 17:00.
Our accomodation at the Caravan park was individual tents under a large marquee and discovered in our briefing at 17:45 it would only be for 1 night and were due to move on from the Walwa fire to the Longwood Berry's Lane fire, near Alexandra, about another 3.5-4 hours down the road.
Dinner was at Corryong at 18:10, where we inundated the pub for dinner, overwhelming the staff with the extra 30 odd mouths to feed. We weren't able to order before 19:00, and we didn't get our dinner until about 20:20, with all the meals coming out 6 or 8 at a time.
After dinner we headed back to the camp site by 21:30 turning in by 22:00.Læs mere
Day 2-Travel to Alexandra, Longwood fire
18. januar, Australien ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C
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.Læs mere
Day 3-Yarck patrol and mop up.
19. januar, Australien ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C
It was so nice to sleep in a real bed, even if we were in a shared rooms and people snored... ear plugs are the best, though the airconditioner was on all night, so it ended up being another cold night.
I got up at 05:50 after almost 7 hours sleep, showered and went for breakfast. We were due at the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning depot by 08:20 for the 08:30 briefing and tasking. We fueled the truck and were the first ones to arrive. Briefing, tasking and we were on the road by just after 09:00.
We were tasked to travel to Yarck and had a region to patrol, looking out for smokers, hotspots and just to be a visible presence for the community, giving the local CFA crews a break. This was one of the townships we travelled through that had been devastated by fires almost 2 weeks ago. We staged at the CFA shed in the main street of Yarck, and each unit were given their areas of patrol and off we went again.
It turns out we took a wrong turn, and ended up going off in the wrong direction, but still managed to find some problems, a damaged bridge on one of the rail trails and some smokers. We were also tasked with being the go to crew if any specific tasks were called through. It wasn't long before we got a job.
By this time we were out of water, so we went to get water and stopped at the CFA shed in Yarck for lunch.
It amazes me just how generous and appreciative the small communities are. From the service station in Alexandra giving us a roll of paper towel because ours on the truck had become saturated after a Windex leak to SES giving us free run of supplies of electrolyte drinks, snack packs, tool, equipment, etc. and members of the community insisting we not pay for a coffee to families fronting up with meals they had made; they were just extremely grateful for us just being there to help in any small way.
We were sent to a tree that was down over one of the bush tracks, and I managed to put my chainsaw training into action; the tree had a fire burning within it and it needed to be cut up so it could be controled and so it could be removed from the fence it had damaged when it had come down.
After the tree, we moved on to more patroling the devastation. The main area we spent the remainer of the day working on had been particularly hard hit. Multiple properties, houses and sheds had been reduced to piles of melted metal and ash, with the oweners and occupants clearly having very little opportunity to do much more than get out.
Once we had done all we could we had run out of water again, so we headed the 10km back in to Yarck and by that stage it was getting close to dinner.
We filled up at the Koala Cherries factory, which is where we had been filling up all day and the manager on duty gave us a pallet box full of bags of cherries, close to 12 kg in all. We gave them out back at staging as there were way too many cherries for us to eat on our own.
We headed back to the camp absolutely filthy, tired and sore but feeling like we had a productive day.
There was going to be a group going to swim in the river after dinner and I was planning to join them, but after some issues with the group who went down yesterday, the Strike Team Leader was not thrilled so we didn't end up going.
So I blogged, watched a group play Cards Against Humanity (I was too busy blogging), Then showered and went to bed about 22:30.Læs mere
Day 4-Alexandra patrol & hot spot check
20. januar, Australien ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C
I made a point of grabbing an extra blanket, just in case the airconditioner was on and I got cold. I didn't need it in the end but it did get cool during the night.
Up at 06:15. Showered and got ready for the day. Breakfast and on the trucks by 07:30. This time I drove into the main street for coffees and dropped off most of the crew while MJ and myself went and got fuel for the truck, then came back, picked up the crew in the main street and assembled at Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning depot by 08:20 for the 08:30 briefing and tasking. After yesterday's work on the chainsaw, it needed cleaning and sharpening, so Kevin and I started that before the briefing, and finished afterwards.
We were tasked with Rivers 30 to patrol an area along the southern end of the Longwood fires and an area where they spotted over into adjoining grassland and hills.
It was a very hilly run and a little hairy in places. I took the truck through some patches where there was a good side slope; there were times when I was concerned the truck would tip, but it didn't. We also went way off road and ended up on a farm track on top of a narrow ridge. We got a good distance along the ridge, then the track became blocked by a tree which would take too long to clear, even with chainsaw. I had to reverse all the way back along the ridge to get out. It was a real challenge with very little room to move and nowhere to turn around for a good couple of hundred meters.
As we had gone as far as we could with our patrol area and had checked out all our allocated hotspots, we were tasked to respond to a hotspot picked up by thermal imaging on a nearby property. The farmer had no idea what we were referring to, but it turns out there was an area on his property that had burnt but was not mapped so we checked it out. It was a nice little patch where the river elbowed in a little valley. We didn't end up finding any problems, so we headed out, encountering Molonglo Command on our way back. We were released for a lunch break and after lunch checked out the other end of the sector we were patroling earlier in the day. A locked and impassible gate and very steep terrain later, and we were heading back out to the main road, having encountered no issues.
There was really not much happening in our sector and we decided to head back to our camp where we started to clean the truck; it was covered in a thick layer of dust inside and out.
As we headed back there was word on the Vic. channels that 2 storm cells were developing in the region and we could hear a lot of thunder in the area. No sooner had we cleaned the truck, the first storm rolled in and it poured.
We were instructed to go back to the area we were patroling earlier in the day as the rain hadn't reached there, but the second cell was bringing a lot of dry lightning with it.
We parked at a suitable location where we could watch the storm roll in and could easily take off if required then decided to head up and do another run along the fire Edge that we visited this morning. We were working our way along grader lines, which can become very boggy when wet and, sure enough, just as we arrived at the edge the rain started and with it came a fairly heavy downpour of hail. We headed back out where we could take shelter from the hail, and when it cleared headed back to the main highway.
Inevitably, with the storm came lightning strikes and, more inevitable, one of the lightning strikes sparked a grass fire half an hour before we were due to knock off for the day. We raced for the fire and assisted with mop up as it was small enough that by the time we got there the farmers had managed to control it with thir ATVs.
We made it back in time for dinner and had a debriefing on the whole campaign after dinner. A group of the members headed down to the pub and purchased some beers to have back at the camp, but I chose not to participate. I had gotten word that a very high Coronal Mass Ejection event would be causing some very visible and strong Aurora activity, due from about 21:15 onwards. Les, MJ, Kevin and myself headed down to the oval where it was dark and we could sit on top of Gungahlin 10 to see if we could see anything of the Aurora Australis... and we did!
There wasn't a lot to see with the unaided eye just some obvious spears of monochromatic light shooting up from the Southern Horizon. I did however manage to get some photos on my phone and it was then you could really make out the colours. It was incredible to finally get to see it for myself!
We stayed out until about 23:30, when we decided to turn in for the night. It was going to be another early start, and a long drive home.Læs mere
Day 5-Home again
21. januar, Australien ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C
We were, again up early, about 06:30, which was pretty average after a late night watching the Aurora Australis. Shower, breakfast and photos in front of the trucks and we were on the road by about 07:45.
We had a brief coffee and fueling stop (I hit a speed bump without warning and spilt Lauren's hot choc) at Alexandra and regrouped with all units at Yarck CFA shed at 08:15, to proceed to travel home in convoy.
There were a couple of toilet stops along the way before our first driver swap at the Logic Centre near Wodonga.
While there, I suggested we make a very brief stop at the Ettamogah Pub, line up the trucks and get a photo of them in front of the pub. I asked our IC if we could, and he was indifferent but told me to talk to the drivers and see what they want to do. 3 were indifferent, 4 were ok with the stops and none of them were opposed to it, so as we approached Table Top we pulled off the highway, got the trucks lined up and got the photo. An awesome outcome and a famous Australian icon; a typically Australian scene and opportunity not to pass up.
After this brief stop, we continued on along the highway, stopping for fuel at Tarcutta, then on to lunch at Gundagai.
The final driver swap, and then straight on to Canberra, arriving at Fairbairn by 16:15 so people could pick up their cars and go home.
I continued to drive GUN10 back to the station at Mitchell, dropping Kevin off at home along the way.
Once back at the station, cleaned the truck, parked it and finally got home about 18:00.
So ends my first deployment experience.Læs mere
