By Mikayla van Loon
It’s 10pm at night. The final checks of a fire burning at the end of your street show no signs of smoke or flames.
There’s no wind. Advice from VicEmergency says to watch and act but that the fire is controlled.
Feeling comfortable and safe, you decide to go to bed.
An hour later you’re awoken to car doors slamming and people yelling in your street.
This was the scenario that played out for one Crestview Close resident and their family on Saturday 15 March as a bushfire raged just metres away from their home.
“It was frightening waking up to those sounds. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the people screaming in the street and yelling, trying to wake up the neighbours,” they said.
“I panicked, got up and raced out the front and from our balcony, all I could see was embers. It was raining embers.
“I’m seeing embers flying through the air, they’re red. It’s not ash, it’s fire.
“I looked up the street and all I could see was a glow.”
These embers, sometimes the size of a screwdriver and five to 10 centimetres wide, were a sign for them to get out as soon as they could.
With two young children asleep inside, getting them to safety was the first priority.
“As soon as I said, ‘everyone get up now, let’s go’, there were no questions asked. They were amazing, they just got up, didn’t even put shoes on, raced outside, got into the car.”
Ensuring windows and doors were locked and the house was watered as much as possible, the family of four left their Montrose home for a family member’s.
Items already packed in the car ready to go, with just the cat and the dog needing to be bundled into the car too, they left by about 11.30pm.
“Pulling out of the driveway, I looked up at the end of the street where people were standing, and there was fire that had started coming down the walking track where we normally go up into the bush.
“It wasn’t that those flames were large, but there was still fire at the very end of the street and the trees behind the house were just glowing.”
The adrenaline and the need to get out, the resident said, truly kicked in and it wasn’t until they reached safety that the reality sank in.
“I don’t even remember smelling the smoke until I was safe at (my in-law’s) house, but I’ve seen photos and videos and I’m just like, ‘how did I not even remember the smoke’, I was so focused on getting out.”
With the height and ferocity of fire not getting to its worst until after midnight, it wasn’t uncommon for people to have stayed.
“A lot of people I know in the area weren’t leaving their house until about 12. I think it took people a while to realise how bad it was getting. I don’t know, we just left. As soon as we could hear what we could hear and see what we saw, we just left.”
Having had questions since the events of Saturday night as to why they didn’t leave that afternoon, the resident said messaging led them to believe it was safe enough to stay, or in the case of Sheffield Road residents, to return home after evacuating earlier.
It was for this reason they asked to remain anonymous because of fear of criticism.
“You can’t just pack up every time there’s fire, small shrub and grass fires happen all the time. We were told it was contained. We couldn’t see any smoke. There was no wind.
“So yes, we went to bed at 10 o’clock with the knowledge of going outside assessing it, feeling safe enough to be there, and we were quite ok with going to bed.
“It was so sudden, within that hour…It just goes to show how quick and instant it actually can be.”
Adding to the initial sense of safety on Saturday night was the precautions the family had taken after the fire had started around 2pm.
“(We were) hosing everything down, and got up on the roof and made sure our gutters were clean, which they were, all that sort of stuff that you do. You check everything around the house, make sure there’s nothing lying around.
“We also have a wood fire that we use for heating so we have a big pile of firewood up the back of our house. That was our main concern so we were hosing that down all afternoon, just trying to get it as wet as possible in case anything changed.
“We packed the car. We’ve always had, ever since we moved in here, two boxes of important things to us, not even clothing. It’s just important things that aren’t replaceable. So we put them in the car just to get ready because you never know what’s going to happen.”
Returning home on Sunday, the family took some further action, moving the pile of wood to the far back corner of their property to ensure that no houses would be impacted if the situation worsened again.
Speaking to Star Mail on Thursday 20 March and having had a few days to come to terms with what had happened, the resident said even in hindsight there probably wasn’t much more they could have done.
“All it takes is for that little bit of wind, a few embers to jump the containment line, and everything’s just so dry. I don’t think we could have done anything different.”
Despite some criticism of the notifications being sent out to residents and the quick change in warnings on VicEmergency, the Crestview Close resident said hopefully the bushfire acts as a learning experience for everyone.
“From everything that’s happened, I really just hope it makes people think about it more literally and look at where we live. You can’t be complacent. You can’t ignore the fact that it might happen one day.
“It should always be, especially in the summer months, on your mind, keep the house tidy, keep your lawn short, keep your gutters clean. Make sure you don’t have rubbish laying around.
“Hopefully it’s just a reality check for people of where we live, and making sure you’ve got your plan of attack in place and making sure your kids understand.
“We can’t always rely on our phones. We don’t always have reception. Even with updates, you can’t always rely on your phones for that instant alert. And if you’re asleep, you might not hear your phone go off.”
Living in the same street as the residents who lost their home, it proved how easily an ember that catches in a backyard can spread – luckily it was contained to just two properties.
“I feel bad for those people that their house burned down. It got in the back, so it just went through the back of the house and so the front looks ok, but they’re not living in there, they can’t.”
Although living on an urban fringe and not in dense bush like the Dandenongs, the resident said there comes a time when everything needs to burn, it was just Montrose’s time.
“The area we live in, you’ve sort of got to expect it at some point. If you live near a bush area, it goes in cycles. It dries out. It could be every five years or 10 years that something will happen. It needs to be burned out.”
