By Mikayla van Loon
The Easter weekend, into early April, kept Mooroolbark CFA busy with house fires, car fires and an accident all requiring their services.
Brigade captain Mark Drennan said while there was no particular reason for all the call outs, it did mean firefighters were out on the road multiple times.
The first call out was to a house fire near Chirnside Park Primary School early on Saturday 30 March, which Mr Drennan said was most likely caused by “faulty electrical equipment”.
“The owner of the property said he found a malfunctioning fridge on fire. Mooroolbark arrived first and then handed over the response to Chirnside Park CFA,” he said.
Also over the weekend, the brigade turned out to a three car collision on Brice Avenue, where no one was injured.
Mr Drennan said an elderly lady who had been driving one of the vehicles couldn’t remember much after the accident but was physically unscathed.
Assisting Fire Rescue Victoria on Easter Sunday in Croydon at another house fire, Mr Drennan said it was “deemed accidental”.
“The residents and some friends were burning in a 44 gallon drum and went to bed without putting the fire out properly. It then spread into some dry leaves,” he said.
“The message here is to never leave fires unattended and to always make sure they are properly extinguished before leaving or going to sleep.”
Luckily, Mr Drennan said in both house fire instances they had working smoke detectors, alerting the residents to the blazes.
Coming up to the end of daylight savings on 7 April, the CFA encourages people to not only change their clocks but to change their smoke detector batteries.
The urgency for tested and working smoke alarms comes as new data revealed 14 people died in preventable house fires last year.
CFA Chief Officer Jason Heffernan said it’s essential that families are conducting monthly testing of their smoke alarms to keep their loved ones safe.
“The number of fatalities in the last year is very alarming and devastating to know they could have been prevented,” he said.
“In the past 10 years, CFA have responded to more than 13,000 residential fires that have seen more than 330 casualties.”
After responding to a car fire on Hull Road on Tuesday 26 March, Mooroolbark’s members were also called out to another car fire in the car park of the The Terrace Shopping Centre, where a lithium ion battery powered tool had been left on the front seat of a ute.
Mr Drennan said, for tradies especially, it’s important “to make sure power tools are transported correctly and looked after”.
“Lithium ion batteries are new tech and this is a new phase we face as firefighters but there are things people can do to prevent fires,” he said.
Ensuring the proper charging equipment is used, batteries aren’t dented or damaged, water corrosion hasn’t occurred and that batteries aren’t left charging once full can go a long way to preventing fires.
“We’re learning as we go too,” Mr Drennan said.
“So not letting them overheat, particularly mobile phone power packs. We responded to a job where a power bank had been thrown onto a bed which then overheated and caught fire.
“Make sure you put them on hard, flat surfaces that are not combustible.”
In each of these call outs, Mr Drennan said big thanks had to go to the community, for the patience, care and support offered to the firefighters and people impacted by the fires.
“The community we live in is really great and they support not only us but everyone around,” he said.
“The car fire we responded to at The Terrace, the guy lost everything and the public was very supportive of him.”
Mr Drennan said adding to the ease of their response, particularly to the car fires, was the willingness and “situational awareness” of drivers on the roads to safely move out of the fire truck’s way.
“Being aware, when driving, of any emergency vehicle and to safely pull over and then back into the lane when possible is all about situational awareness.
“When heading to the Hull Road job, we didn’t even have to ask the community, they cleared the road for us.
“Your cooperation is invaluable and greatly appreciated.”
