TRIGGER WARNING:
THIS REPORT CONTAINS IMAGES AND INFORMATION THAT MAY OFFEND SOME READERS.
Today we remember the 173 people who perished on Black Saturday, February 7 2009, and over 400 people with serious injuries – some of whom will never recover – from Australia’s worst natural disaster.
Not including those who did, have and still are having mental health issues.
Those that went through it, whether as a resident, visitor or CFA volunteer their lives changed forever that day and would never be the same again.
An upside – if there’s such a thing – of that fateful day is that it brought all who went through it, and were lucky enough to survive, much closer together and bonded a community together and created many close friendships.
At 3:11 pm it was 44.6 degrees Celcius and humidity had dropped to 17 per cent.
At 4:41 pm we recorded a rarely-heard Mayday call and posted to Facebook “Not that bad … well Whittlesea CFA just called Mayday [on the two-way radio] a r [sic] trying to save their lives right now!”
Kinglake resident Kerry-Ann Wilcocks soon responded to the post with “What.” Thanks to the warning she and her children survived, despite losing their home.
At 4:44 pm we posted to Facebook that “A Whittlesea tanker is burning around itself on Humevale Rd, so they must be trapped by fire, hence them calling ‘Mayday.'”
Access to the internet and power was lost at 4:46 pm so an amateur radio connected to a car battery was used to continue communications by Ashley Geelan, VK3HAG.
As they say – and it still applies today worldwide – ‘When all else fails, [Amateur] Ham Radio Works,’ and Victorian (VK3) amateur radio operators of Australia’s WICEN continued to provide communications for over a week until Defence Force Signals from Watsonia (Simpson) Army Barracks took over.
A dual-band amateur radio was then used – as the two-way radio towers in Kinglake (Frank Thomson Reserve) that service Melbourne and the district’s radio and mobile phone communications failed – to keep the CFA and Police on the air, using the amateur radio equipment of local journalist Ashley Geelan.
As a mark of respect, Kinglake Ranges News archived the photos and reports until today when we released to the public the photographs Ashley Geelan took whilst also fighting the fires.
No other media outlet has these photographs as mainstream media and rural reporters didn’t turn up until after the fact, late on Saturday evening or Sunday, February 8.
We fought it. We lived it. We recorded it.
Kinglake Ranges News editor, and amateur ‘ham’ radio operator, Ashley Geelan VK3HAG, monitored police, fire and Victorian Government State Mobile Radio (SMR) whilst operating the Kinglake weather station and providing the community with weather and fire updates via Facebook, twitter, sms and several visits to the Kinglake Pub to warn locals and visitors.
The last hotel visit to warn was the fastest Geelan’s ever run and the hotel was closed immediately.
Sadly, some visitors that were forced to leave the hotel and drive home – trying to outrun the fire – after then publicans Craig & Sharon Lovik closed the hotel never made it home.
The reason the shops, hotel, police and fire station survived was thanks to locals – including this masthead – who were left ‘on the hill’ and trapped in Kinglake.
All locals had were fire pumps, some 38mm canvas fire hoses and some rubber hoses (rubber fire hoses are useless once an ember lands on them) and used any tank water we could access.
Fortunately, as a former teenage volunteer firefighter with Eltham CFA, Geelan had some skills and training that came in very handy on Black Saturday. (Usually-whilst trained-I operated the watch room pre- ‘VicFire/Intergraph’ during call-outs at Eltham and rarely ‘jumped on a truck to firefight.’)
ABC Local Radio Melbourne (774kHz AM) as the designated emergency broadcaster didn’t even issue an on-air warning until several hours after the fire had passed.
It’s why ABC Kinglake Ranges (94.5MHz FM) was quickly created and started broadcasting from the Kinglake Ranges Neighbourhood House, with Simon Rogers as presenter.
Colloquially known as the ‘Robertson Rd Crew’ Dereck Geelan (brother), Graeme Geelan (father), now Murrindindi Shire Councillor (Kinglake Ward) Leigh Dunscombe, Aaron Robertson, Rick Watts, Brett Walker, Jess Walker, Ron and several others who fought to save homes, protect women and children sheltering in the (then) CFA Station and Wombats Cafe (now the Kinglake Bakery) and ‘save our town.’
Similar things happened throughout the Kinglake Ranges, with off-duty Kinglake police officer Cameron Caine trying his best with a crew of Pheasant Creek and Kinglake West residents to save homes, buildings and lives at Kinglake West.
It should be noted that many Kinglake women wanted to help fight the fire, but the Robertson Rd crew wouldn’t allow it. Women and children first. Sent to the CFA shed or cafe with some of the Robertson Rd crew keeping the water flowing over the buildings.
The Robertson Rd crew stopped the fire at the eastern wall of Cr Dunscombe’s home as his eastern wall started ‘to melt’.
We then went on – and worked through the night – to save the Main St shops, Police Station, Mountain Monthly (MM) office and Kinglake Pub.
“A huge thank you to Ashley, Ron and the other community members who battled hard to save the Mountain Monthly (MM) offices [Robertson Rd] and house next door when the firestorm hit Kinglake on Saturday 7 February,” said the MM Board and Staff in their March 2009 edition following Black Saturday.
The supermarket stock caught fire, the ‘Robertson Road crew’ broke in through the rear entrance and put out the fire. The police station’s verandah poles started to burn, and Ashley Geelan put those fires out.
The following day, brothers Ashley and Dereck Geelan offered their home to anyone who needed somewhere to live, with 16 people living in the lounge room it quickly became a local mess hall.
Others camped in the backyard.
Lifeline: 13 11 14
Beyond Blue: 1300 224 636
Nexus Primary Health (Kinglake): 1300 773 352
