By Tyler Wright
A local fire brigade is urging residents to take responsibility for their own fire safety ahead of the upcoming bushfire season.
The Sassafras-Ferny Creek Fire Brigade is calling on residents to ’adopt’ a fire hydrant to monitor.
Brigade lieutenant John Schauble said volunteers monitor fire hydrants in the area once a year, but this is “not enough“.
“What we want people to do is to, if they have a hydrant out the front of their house, to keep an eye on it to make sure that it’s still always clear and accessible, that there’s not bush and shrubs blocking access to it,“ Mr Schauble said.
“There’s nothing worse than turning up in the middle of a night trying to find a fire hydrant that’s been hidden for whatever reason.
“It’s very frustrating and slows down our ability to act quickly in an emergency.“
Mr Schauble said silt can build up around the hydrants after a large downpour of rain, and people should be aware of markings around the fire hydrant.
There are three fire hydrants present in the district; including one above ground with a red cap, one undergound with a square cast iron cover, and another underground with a larger black heavy-duty cover sporting the word hydrant on it.
Markings are also present around each hydrant for firefighters to spot the utility when needed.
Mr Schauble said residents should be on the lookout to ensure each hydrant has the appropriate markings in tact.
“On the roadway, there’ll be a little blue cat’s eye reflector and they get hit by cars and they come off,“ he said.
“There’s often also a post that’s got a blue reflector on it; It’ll be a red and white post with a blue reflector, or there’ll be a reflector on a telephone pole or a power pole,and there needs to be one on either side so that we can see it from which direction we’re coming.
“I understand entirely why people don’t want one sitting on their nature trip, so a lot of people plant things around them to disguise them; we don’t want you to do that, and if you do do that – we’ll come and clear it away ourselves.“
Mr Schauble said hydrant monitoring is about community “helping themselves“.
“The more that people help themselves, no matter what the circumstances, in relation to fire; the better,“ he said.
“There’s no formal registration or anything like that; we just want people to look after them if they’ve got one, so that it helps them and it helps their neighbours.“
The Sassafras-Ferny Creek Fire Brigade will conduct community meetings coming up to the fire season, which occurs throughout summer and autumn in the southeast of the country.
Mr Schauble said it is set to be a “normal fire season“ for the hills.
“We’ve had lots of rain, there’s plenty of soil moisture, so it’s not diabolical,“ he said.
“This is a really, really, really, really good opportunity for people to prepare for the next few years coming, because we’ve got a bit of a breather.
“We’ve seen some fire activity in places like Gippsland…the last few years have been below normal so people have got into this habit of thinking ’oh well, it’s okay,’ ’it’ll be okay this year’ but this is a good opportunity to prepare for the year ahead.“
Any issues with local fire hydrants can be directed to secretary@sassafrascfa.org.au
