Pakenham CFA group officer Ivan Smith reflects on this Saturday’s 25th anniversary of the Ash Wednesday fires.By Callan Date
IVAN Smith will be alone when he reflects on the 25th anniversary of the Ash Wednesday bushfires this Saturday.
It will be an emotional time for the man who was in charge of the fire-fighting operations on 16 February, 1983.
That fateful date is forever etched in the memories of the Narre Warren CFA after six of its members perished in the blaze that engulfed Upper Beaconsfield and surrounding areas.
Mr Smith was the Deputy Group Officer, an unforgiving role which nearly cost him his own life.
The 63-year-old Pakenham Upper resident recalls the events of the day with a sadness that is clearly evident 25 years on.
At the height of the inferno, Mr Smith was receiving about seven calls a minute from various CFA crews at the fire front.
Working from a tin shed, with volunteers Joyce Attreed and Alva Ratcliffe helping record communication, the headquarters was close to burning to the ground.
Mr Smith said it was about 9pm when the sky was an eerie deep blood red all around him.
“I didn’t think I was going to live. I thought I was going to be killed for sure,” he said.
“You are so frightened because you think you are going to die.”
The trio kept to their task and continued to offer instructions to the crews on the ground.
But when all radio communications went quiet, Mr Smith knew things had taken a turn for the worse.
“The wind change had come through and the radio had gone dead quiet,” he said.
“We had one gargled response from the Narre tanker saying that they were in trouble and needed help. You just couldn’t make any sense of where they were.
“I knew they had been working in High Street and I knew roughly that they would be in the St Georges Road area.”
Mr Smith shows an 80-minute period in the original handwritten CFA log book of radio calls. It is blank.
“We are trying to stay alive ourselves at this stage. I am still calling the Narre tanker and Panton Hill tanker (another CFA crew which had five fire fighters killed in the blaze) regularly every 15 minutes. We were getting nothing.”
Six Narre Warren CFA members were found dead the next day.
They were huddled together under their new fire truck, which had been presented to them only two days earlier.
John Minett, Dorothy Balcombe, Darrell Wilkes, Neil Henry, Llyde Donovan and Murray Forsyth never stood a chance. The fire travelled about 500 metres in 11 seconds before it engulfed them.
A total of 21 people died in the Upper Beaconsfield-Belgrave Heights fires. More than 9000 hectares of land was burnt and 238 buildings destroyed.
A teary Mr Smith reflects on the aftermath of that night.
“One of the mothers asked me why her son died on the Narre tanker that night. I said to her under those conditions if you put firemen next to fire, nothing was going to save them.
“I don’t think anyone can realise how brave those people were.”
Mr Smith will head to the track where the firefighters were killed and pay his respects this Saturday.
“I don’t know why I’ll go by myself. I guess no one can understand the pressure that was on that day.”
