Chris Oldfield, Naracoorte Community News

Lucindale CFS group officer Patrick Ross last week pointed to black markings on a map in the incident control room of the town’s fire-fighting base.

He turned to visiting SA emergency services minister Vincent Tarzia and said: “This is where the fatality happened.”

Louise Hincks of the Happy Valley brigade died when a burning tree fell on her, while off the truck, during the recent 3877 ha Coles – Callendale fire.

It was the fourth major fire in four years near Lucindale, the seventh in 10 years and just 10kms from where three others perished in Ash Wednesday’s fire.

Mr Ross praised resources the government had made available to CFS volunteers – upgraded trucks and vehicles, Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), radios and thermal imaging equipment.

A local family had also donated a cel-fi for each Lucindale fire truck, enabling volunteers to maintain contact with loved ones at home while firefighting.

While bitumen was needed at the Lucindale aerodrome to reduce propeller damage to water bombers, Mr Ross said the facility otherwise worked well.

But after so many major fires during the last decade, and now a fatality, Mr Ross said “we need to get a whole lot smarter about how we run these incidents”.

He highlighted the importance of the incident control room – yet it had no adequate communication or technology.

There was a desperate need to train more volunteers in incident management – a high-pressure role learned during fires.

The lack of mobile phone range in the district was serious, and amplified by the death of Ms Hincks.

“The massive issue is – when you have a fatality anywhere … you have to broadcast it through the Government Radio Network (GRN),” Mr Ross said.

“People can listen to that on an app. And, all the volunteers – 150 volunteers at the fire go `oh dear, one of ours has just died’.

“It just flattens everybody. And, there is still a job to do.”

Mobile phone service was urgent, as well as a review of CFS processes during tragic events.

Mr Ross and deputy group officer Nick Edwards also explained the importance of more than 50 private farm units as well as CFS volunteers.

Regarding Automatic Vehicle Locators (AVLs) used by trucking companies, Mr Ross said they were urgently needed in firetrucks.

“I bashed the minister’s ear last year and said we will be happy to trial AVLs,” Mr Ross said.

“But to give you an example … a fatality was called in at this location,” he said, pointing again to black markings on the map.

“The next thing, (after another call) I’ve got another double set of injuries happening over here … at a different grid reference.

“So, I’m thinking `this is so circumstantial’…”

Mr Ross explained if trucks had AVLs, he could look at a screen and see there was no truck many kilometres away at the second grid reference.

“And bearing in mind I’ve got to call two Ambulances for each incident.

“When you call two Ambulances … the next thing is Bordertown has got to cover Naracoorte.

“The whole system starts to cascade. AVL is just so important.”

Of equal importance was a different colour appearing on a screen in the incident control room for each group or region of trucks.

Otherwise, they would appear as black ants on the screen -“meaningless”.

Mr Tarzia said he visited Lucindale as part of a two-day South East tour “to thank volunteers like Patrick (Ross), and all the volunteers right across the entire region for their hard work, dedication and stoic efforts”.

He said AVLs were being “unveiled as we speak”.

“I’m hopeful it will be done (at Lucindale) in the first half of this year. It is really important we can see where the volunteers are and keep them safe,” Mr Tarzia said.

Member for MacKillop Nick McBride said the forest fire took a long time to contain, a lot of resources and was still smouldering.

He thought old dead stumps would continue to smoulder, possibly until there were substantial rains.

Regarding AVLs, Mr McBride said he had heard from volunteers in some of the local trucks that “they don’t want AVLs. They think they’ll be over managed”.

“I’m not against them … but I’ve just had some feedback,” he said.

“What we are looking at now is the facilities here at Lucindale as a result of seven big fires in the last 10 years.

“The airstrip has been well utilised by the arial bombers and we are looking at sealing greater areas, as in bituminising, because of the impact on the propellers.

“And we know we need to roll out more mobile phone coverage.”

Naracoorte based CFS Region 5 regional commander John Probert thanked Mr Tarzia for coming and recognising the volunteers in the area.

“I think Patrick spoke very well, as did Nick (Edwards). The tour of the fire ground was an opportunity for the minister to see the impact of fires in our local community,” Mr Probert said.

“The Lucindale (community) have just been hit so often, for so long.

“It is recognised around the state just how tough the Lucindale community is doing it at the moment.

“Between Lacepede and Lucindale, it has been hard for everyone.

“Losing a volunteer during that fire has had so much impact across the state.

“It reinforces this is a dangerous game that we are in. It is so different to volunteering in other areas.”

The minister’s visit included the Lucindale CFS incident control room, aerodrome and Coles-Callendale fire ground.

Other dignitaries tagging the ministerial tour included CFS assistant chief officer Brenton Eden, Member for Barker Tony Pasin and Naracoorte Lucindale mayor Erika Vickery.

This article appeared in the Naracoorte Community News.

Related stories: Fourth Lucindale fire in four years claims life; Fire tragedy: Obituary for Louise Hincks.