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Anglesea CFA Open Day

Volunteer Fire Fighter Craig Allen cooks sausages for the visitors

With fine weather and a lot of cars passing on the Great Ocean Road, the Anglesea CFA opened its doors with a sizzle to mark the beginning of fire season. Visitors were encouraged to share a sausage with members of the crew, buy a raffle ticket and take a closer look at the equipment used.

A bad fire season is being predicted by many of the experts. Low rainfall, high temperatures and high levels of bush fuel make a combustible mix. The Anglesea CFA has already attended 3 grass and bush fires this season, in and around Anglesea.

The most recent was at Pt Addis, where a fire, which began in the car-park was blown by high northerly winds over the cliff and out to sea. (See photo) A week earlier, a small grass fire took hold in the heathland opposite the Heath Land Tea House situated at the bottom of O'Donohues Road. The CFA quickly contained it and put it out.

Anglesea CFA members meet every Tuesday night at 7.30pm at the CFA Station for either Training or Information Sessions and on occasion for social events. A good night was recently had at the Geelong Go Kart Track by some of the more adventurous members.

A highlight of the day was the involvement of other CFA Brigade members. Phillip Wall, Brigade Support Officer from Geelong came to talk to locals and visitors. Robert Hyland and his son Jarrad drove from Macedon to set up and run a 3 dimensional interactive educational display.

Robert is employed in the Bushfire Blitz Program and travels the state educating both children and adults alike, about the dangers of household appliances and house fire hazards. Jarrad works at the Melbourne Head Office as a SECC support officer. He is one of the people responsible for the text messages sent over the CFA paging network.

When a new recruit has passed training requirements, they are issued with a pager. This is a quick means of communicating fire details to those on call.

The Open Day was used to not only show the public what the CFA and its members do in a community such as ours but also to encourage visitors, males and females, to think about becoming involved in the CFA as volunteers.

2 possible recruits were signed up. 10 dozen sausages were consumed and Mrs. Julie Hinds, mother of six from Thornbury, Melbourne, won the fire bear raffle.