By Chris Day
Your article brought back some memories our family home of 38 years was at Belgrave South and the day and the following months were something you never forget.
That was in days before mobile phones, I was out at client on St Kilda Rd and as I walked into their office I was told to ring our office immediately as there was a fire near our house. At that stage, Melbourne radio was full of reports about fires in South Australia.
I couldn’t get through to our phone so I started driving towards Belgrave South on Wellington Rd, but police turned me around, then I headed toward Belgrave/Hallam Rd but was blocked so I tried Glenfern Rd to Upwey and was let through a roadblock as CFA knew I was local.
Got to our home and my wife and neighbour were home but all the kids from our street had been moved to another house that had a pool. We lived on a road where the Primary school was so kids were heading home heading towards the fire as started just as school day ended.
The fire had missed our house by about 200 metres but destroyed numerous houses as fire front came over the hill from Birdsland and headed down the hill towards Wellington Rd heading towards Upper Beaconsfield.
The barriers had been pulled down around Belgrave South Reserve and the whole ground had cars, caravans and boats everywhere. Not the safest place for people with all the petrol vehicles. Broken down CFA trucks everywhere as it was so hot they couldn’t run the motor. It was something that later saw CFA rethink its vehicles.
About 9pm that night we were hit with a massive southerly wind change which brought the fire back to the edge Belgrave South in a giant dust storm where you couldn’t see anything.
If that change had occurred at 6pm it would have wiped out the Dandenongs.
The next couple of years saw Belgrave South gradually recover from the experience and some of the services introduced eventually led to things like Community Houses being established throughout what was Shire of Sherbrooke in those days.
It also saw the establishment of a group to assist the elderly who were often at home during the day while the rest of the family was at work. My wife Margaret as a retired Nurse was a volunteer for over 20 years to that group and I believe it still exists at an Upwey House the Council purchased.
We moved to Upper Ferntree Gully several years ago but still regularly see people from Belgrave South at the local Supermarket/coffee shop and we all went through that day we hope never happens again.
The Cockatoo fire started later that night but that was a fire started by a person who had been at Belgrave when that fire started. Whether Birdland fire was started by arson we will never know for sure but we all know the vast majority are.
We often see helicopters flying around the Ranges during hot weather and there is no doubt CFA is far better prepared than they were back then.
