JUST days after celebrating New Year’s Eve, 20 firefighters from Kyabram and surrounds formed a strike team with an hour’s notice and headed to the fires blazing at Mount Hotham.
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Strike Team 2096 formed at Elmore with members from Kyabram, Rochester, Axedale, Inglewood and Huntly leaving to protect the mountain’s vital assets before a cool change allowed them to return home on Sunday.
Assistant team leader Wayne Peterson – who fought in Black Saturday – said what he saw in Mt Hotham was the worst he had come across.
“It was certainly a lot worse than Black Saturday – just the ferociousness of the fire and how quickly it moved.
“I thought the fires on Black Saturday moved fast, but this has gone to another level.
“Mount Hotham is green, but the fire was still moving through the vegetation, it was unprecedented conditions.”
Strike Team 2096 arrived at their station on Mt Hotham where they met 12 local CFA members on Saturday.
“The call came out that we'd be evacuated because it wasn’t going to be safe for us there, and of course a lot of the local members had property out at Dinner Plain.
“There were certainly some very emotional highs and lows and it rubbed off on us.
“Everything was evacuated up there, it was really only the Fire Brigade and some locals to support us while we were there, otherwise Mount Hotham was totally abandoned.”
“It was fairly intense on the Saturday – we were waiting for the wind change in the afternoon and when it came so did the humidity, which helped dampen the fire across the top of Mount Hotham.
9°C