Bullioh community meeting

The Border Mail

FFMVic Upper Murray District manager Dave Jensen speaks at a community meeting in Bullioh about the current Mt Lawson bushfire

Transcript

00:00So, fighting fires, it's a team sport, yeah?

00:04So, we've got all the agencies who are doing their bit

00:07and what we can to manage this

00:09and what we can to manage the emergency.

00:11We really rely on community to manage yourselves.

00:15So, we can give you the information

00:17and then we rely on you to make some really good decisions

00:21based on that information.

00:23So, what we're saying is, given the forecast over the next few days,

00:26given that we do have, well, we will have up to an 8,000 hectare fire

00:32in the landscape and there is potential for this fire to grow

00:35and potentially to grow in all directions,

00:39now is the time to enact your fire plan.

00:41If you've got a fire plan, now is the time to be enacting that.

00:45We do still have a window of opportunity,

00:47but as we've seen in the last decade,

00:50situations can change very, very rapidly

00:52and fires can move very, very rapidly.

00:55So, now is the time to enact your fire plan.

00:58What we're saying is that if you don't have a fire plan,

01:01now is probably the time, well, it is the time to leave.

01:04So, if you don't need to be,

01:06certainly in these areas of Bunjil, in Burrawee,

01:09in Kuitong, even in Tabulio,

01:14now is the time that if you don't need to be here,

01:17the safest option for your personal safety is to leave now.

01:21And it's to leave to the west, towards Talangata, towards Wodonga.

01:27So, this is actually not to put fear into you,

01:29but it's to give you the information that this thing could change quickly

01:32and individuals need to make some decisions

01:36on what you're going to do about your own safety.

01:38If you can't leave, if you have to stay here and you have to be here,

01:43then you need to have a plan.

01:46And if that's to stay and defend your property,

01:49you have to understand that you have to be able to defend that property on your own,

01:54because what we can't guarantee is that there will be a fire truck or an aircraft

01:59that will be there to support you.

02:01So, if you do stay and defend, that's a choice that you make,

02:04but on the understanding that if you are staying,

02:07you are able to defend your property on your own,

02:11because we can't guarantee.

02:13The other thing we are starting to see, and we saw it yesterday,

02:16is we're starting to see more fires that fare across the state.

02:19We've got another one down the Hume Highway,

02:21and we anticipate that this afternoon we will start to see more fires pop up

02:25with those dry thunderstorms as well.

02:27So, what that means is that the resources of all the agencies

02:31starts to get stretched a bit thinner.

02:34So, we only have so many resources across all of us.

02:37We are actually working very, very closely with New South Wales as well,

02:41and over the last couple of days,

02:43we have been utilising New South Wales resources as well on the border.

02:47We have New South Wales embedded into the Telangita office there supporting us.

02:51But again, if they start to see fires,

02:53and the weather on this side of the river,

02:55it's no different to the weather on the other side of the river,

02:58they're going to start to get stretched as well.

03:00So, we really need community to be helping us

03:03in managing this overall emergency.

03:06We're going to go through all of

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