Many across the hills are mourning the death of Bob Horner AFSM, a legendary figure in the CFA and throughout the Dandenong Ranges.
A former captain and long-serving secretary of the Sassafras-Ferny Creek brigade, Robert Arthur (Bob) Horner died on 5 August after a short illness.
Bob’s CFA service stretched over almost 70 years.
As an operational firefighter for just under half a century and an active member of brigade, district, state and national-level committees, he gave a lifetime of service to the local community, the Country Fire Authority and the Australian fire services more broadly.
Bob joined the Sassafras-Ferny Creek Fire Brigade in March 1954.
He saw significant operational activity including major bushfires in the Dandenong Ranges in 1962, 1968 and Ash Wednesday 1983.
Bob’s story is inextricably entwined with the history and growth of the brigade over the past seven decades from the time of its first permanent home in a humble tin shed. His broader service to the CFA and to organisations representing volunteer firefighters across Australia would see him become well-known throughout the fire service.
Bob served as brigade secretary for a remarkable 17 years from 1958 until 1974.
He served twice as brigade Captain; in 1974 and from 1976 until 1985.
Successive captains would continue to turn to him for advice and counsel over the next four decades.
Bob was the first person to be awarded life membership of the Sassafras-Ferny Creek Fire Brigade. In 1992, he was made a Life Member of the CFA and in 2013 granted life membership of the Dandenong Ranges Fire Brigades Group, in which he served as both a deputy group officer and for over a decade as a brigade delegate.
In 1999, he also received the CFA’s Outstanding Service Award, one rarely given, for outstanding or meritorious service.
In 2009, he was awarded the Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria (VFBV) Gold Star for exemplary service to the rural volunteer association over more than 30 years.
Bob was honoured three times through Australian national honours. The first was in 1975 when he was awarded the Queen’s Fire Brigade Long Service and Good Conduct Medal under the imperial honours system. There followed the award in 1992 of the National Medal and in the Australia Day honours list of 2004, the Australian Fire Service Medal.
In 2014, the brigade named its Pumper vehicle in his honour, again a rare accolade and one only accorded to outstanding members of the fire services.
His last service medal awarded by CFA marked 65 years of continuous service.
Remarkably, Bob remained active as a brigade member until just days before his death. He attended almost every monthly meeting and was a VFBV delegate until aged in his eighties. But he also had an attendance record at weekly training long after he ceased to be operational that would put many younger operational members to shame. He would listen in and contribute thoughtfully to the theoretical component based in his experience.
Bob moved to Sassafras as a boy. He married Gwen, his beloved wife and partner of some seven decades, at the Methodist Church in Sassafras. Bob’s roots were sunk deep in our community. His contribution to local affairs was not limited to CFA. He was for many years active as a member of the Ferny Creek Recreation Reserve Committee of Management. That contribution is celebrated through the naming of the main reserve hall in his honour. Bob was also a stalwart for decades of the Kennon Uniting Church in Clarkmont Road. He and Gwen would regularly attend matches of the Olinda-Ferny Creek Football Netball Club to watch children and later grandchildren play.
But it is through his contribution to CFA and the brigade that most locals past and present will remember Bob.
A memorial service for Bob will be held in the Bob Horner Hall at the Ferny Creek Recreation Reserv on the corner of Clarkmont Road and Hilton Road in Ferny Creek on Wednesday 16 August 2023 at 2pm.
