Thu 28 Dec—Induction before being sent to the fireground, then by bus to Omeo in east Gippsland, staying at the Hilltop Hotel. Supplied with thermal underwear to help ward off the cold.

Fri 29 Dec—Bus to Swifts Creek to pick up our GFU’s which had been freighted down by truck. Frank’s unit, DR4 had been damaged while unloading and was in Melbourne being repaired.

From Swifts Creek we drove with the NTFRS strike team to Mount Hotham and stayed some time at the mountaintop reservoir waiting instructions. While there we observed helicopters water bombing the fire front and filling from the reservoir. Most interesting was an Erickson Aircrane, little sister to the well known “Elvis”.

Greg and Christine drove MA1 to Ovens for repairs while Frank transferred to the command vehicle, BF11 with team leader, John Whatley. We parted from NTFRS and were sent to the top of Mount Sugarloaf for mop-up duties.

This was on a bulldozed fire break on top of a heavily timbered razorback ridge with a very steep drop off either side.

Someone described Mount Sugarloaf as “billy-goat country”, but we didn’t see any up there, so even they don’t go that high. We worked at an altitude 1500m above sea level.

The most striking thing about the area, apart from Northern Territory GFU’s on top of some of Australia’s highest mountains, was the large areas of dead trees, Mountain Ash and Alpine Gum, killed by wildfires in 2003. That night we stayed in a school camp just out of Bright, at the foot of Mount Buffalo. Bright is an incredibly pretty town with avenues of large shade trees overhanging the roads.

Sat 30 Dec—Petra became ill and was taken to her family holidaying nearby. She had been a good team member and we were sad to lose her.

Breakfast at Bright and then to the staging area for food, drinking water and instructions. Frank now teamed with Ray in CP2. The BFNT and NTFRS strike teams drove to the top of Mount Buffalo, the drive up being made awkward by all the fallen trees and rocks on the road. The fire must have fairly roared up the very steep mountain side, ripping apart trees and rocks in its fury.

More waiting and then tasked with mopping up around a toilet block and monitoring a fire at Dingo Dell. When the fire spread and became dangerous we back burnt the local area, followed by a mop up with CFA support.

Back to Bright for supper where we were warned not to drink the local water, just bottled water, and to clean our hands with antiseptic after washing. A few of our fire fighters came down with diarrhoea. Then back to Omeo that night to different accommodation.

Sun 31 Dec—Our days in the Swifts Creek region started with breakfast at the Hilltop Hotel at 0600, depart Omeo 0630 for 0700 briefing at Swifts Creek, then deployment to the mountains. Finish time varied daily, but was as late as 2200 on our final day.

Frank was relieved to finally pick up DR4 at Swifts Creek. The drive up to Barmouth Spur in the mountains to the west was remarkable for beautiful tree ferns at the top and the magnificent forests of tall timber.

Barmouth Spur is a winding, often very steep track through the mountains south to the Yahoo Mine on the Nicholson River; it was widened by more than 30 bulldozers as a fire containment line. We were tasked with back-burning sections along this line under the supervision of Department of Sustainability and the Environment (DSE) and in conjunction with NTFRS and the Country Fire Authority (CFA). Rain cut the day’s activities short and made our departure quite interesting in the slippery conditions.

Mon 01 Jan 2007— Back to Barmouth Spur, but too damp to burn, so we played an impromptu game of cricket while waiting for the bush to dry.

That afternoon we continued the back-burn in conjunction with CFA. Our way out that evening was hampered by waiting for fallen trees over the track to be cleared.

Tue 02 Jan— A freezing cold morning at Omeo. Drove along Barmouth Spur to the Yahoo Mine with DSE character, “Crackers”. Meet him and you won’t have to ask why the name. He has done fire fighting duties in the American south where he says the Native Americans named him “Walking Eagle”. I won’t explain, but it has everything to do with the reason the eagle can’t fly.

At a mountaintop helipad on the way back Crackers showed us how to do fuel moisture tests and told us that at first we were considered “flatlanders who did burns by just lighting up and letting them go” and basically didn’t know what we were doing. Now that DSE had seen us in operation they had every confidence in the BFNT team’s ability and we were given back burning operations without CFA backup. We did a major burn that afternoon and Frank had the novel experience of mopping up a fire line from DR4, almost lying on his back while crawling up very steep mountain slopes in bottom gear low range 4WD.

Wed 03 Jan—DR4 out of action due to front shock absorbers torn out of their bottom mounts, so Frank spent the morning in Swifts Creek waiting repairs, rejoining the crew at noon in the mountains where we were tasked with mopping up yesterday’s burn.

This time we were assisted by CFA tankers to supply water and to use their superior pump pressure for dousing burning tree tops.

By late afternoon the back burn had crept down to the gullies and was potentially dangerous for flaring and crowning when burning upslope, leading to floating embers and spot overs, so we were spread along the fire line to continue mopping up and look out for spot fires east of the containment line. Told that burning embers can start spot fires as far as 30km from the fire front. A hot evening meal of roast lamb and vegies was provided on the fire line where we stayed until relieved by CFA night shift, arriving back in Omeo at 2200.

Thu 04 Jan— Cleaned vehicles as best we could with limited water at Swifts Creek, then drove to Traralgon to hand the vehicles over to the relieving crew, then bus to Melbourne for debrief and some R&R. Tired and glad the original planned 2 weeks deployment had been reduced. At the debrief, the CFA Deputy Commissioner suggested that in future we may wish to operate out of their vehicles instead of bringing down our own, they having far more fire fighting units than people to operate them.

Fri 05 Jan— Back home to beautiful, rainy Darwin for a long weekend of rest, washing and preparing for the next trip.

We were treated very well by the Victorian DSE. There was a variety of good accommodation and we were well fed. Understandably, they had initial misgivings about us, but we showed what we could do and earned their respect and trust to the extent that we carried out major back burning operations in the high country on our own without local support. In the process we made some wonderful friends, with the understanding that we would be welcomed back to any future fires in their area. On the fire ground BFNT had an experienced, dedicated team with the best leadership we could have hoped for. Our presence relieved the CFA volunteers’ workload, enabling many to return to normal life during a relatively quiet period.