T H E W I M M E R A
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FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 18 2009
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Heat on
power
supplier
By LAUREN HENRY
at the hearing
THE heat was on Powercor at yesterday’s Royal
Commission hearing in Horsham as questions
were asked about the maintenance of the power
pole that caused Horsham’s Remlaw fire on
Black Saturday.
The 2009 Victorian Bushfire Royal Commis-
sion hearing at Glen Logan in Dooen Road,
Horsham, heard evidence that a conductor fell
from the top of a power pole on Alan Peterson’s
property in Remlaw Road, on the western
outskirts of Horsham, causing a fire that burnt
2300 hectares, eight occupied houses, Horsham
Golf Course clubhouse, sheds, stock, fencing and
fodder.
Energy Safe Victoria compliance officer
Warren Knop told the hearing the Remlaw fire
was caused by a conductor falling off a power
pole and hitting the ground.
The commission heard that the cap on top of
the pole was missing a bolt, which could not be
found.
Powercor network safety and environment
compliance manager Vincent Power was heavily
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questioned by lawyers and the commission about
the power company’s maintenance schedules and
technical details of power poles, in particular
those on the Remlaw Road power line.
Mr Power said one coach bolt had fallen out of
the power pole cap some time between February
7 and July 2004 — the date of the last inspection.
He said the other two bolts came loose shortly
before the cap fell off.
‘‘The third coach screw appears to be missing
— we don’t know for how long,’’ he said.
Mr Power showed the commission hearing the
pole cap that caused the fire and said the power
pole was constructed in 1962.
He explained that power poles were inspected
every five years from Powercor workers using
binoculars, ‘not a hands-on assessment’.
Hey Jude, you’re just in time
ANOTHER JOHN: New parents Toni and Josh Mibus are having one of the best weeks of
Mr Power said he did not know how many
loose power pole fittings or broken tie wires had their life after the birth of their first son Jude. Jude Arden John Mibus was born on Tuesday
morning just in time to see his dad play for Kalkee in the Horsham District Football League
been found since the fire.
‘‘The inspections we have, to date, are robust grand final tomorrow and his mum celebrate her birthday. Mibus said he hoped to have his
son and wife at the game. Kees midfielder Paul Christian and his wife Kylie also had a baby
in identifying these issues before they occur and
allowing us to repair them,’’ he said. boy, their first child, yesterday. Jude’s middle name John carries on a long family tradition.
For the full story, see Monday’s Mail-Times. Picture: PAUL CARRACHER
● Continued — page 4
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 WIMMERA MAIL-TIMES SPECIAL: BUSHFIRE ROYAL COMMISSION IN HORSHAM
Worse than Ash Wednesday
By LAUREN HENRY
at the hearings
INCIDENT controller Dale Russell
believes better management of the fire
ground would have benefited the
Remlaw fire.
Mr Russell, also CFA Region 17
operations manager, outlined details of
the Black Saturday fire to the 2009
Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission
in Horsham yesterday.
When the commission asked Mr
Russell what he had learned from
Black Saturday he said he should have
No fire plan before
Black Saturday hit
HAVEN’S Sue Exell told the Royal
Commission it was the Remlaw fire
that had jolted her into action to make
a fire plan.
Mrs Exell said preparedness was the
key to fighting fires and before Black
Saturday she had ‘never considered
sitting down and putting together a fire
plan’.
She told the hearing how several
neighbouring houses were destroyed in
the fire but her house survived.
‘‘I didn’t actually know what a fire
plan really was but we definitely
should have,’’ she said.
‘‘The extent of our fire plan was to
buy a fire pump.
‘‘I told Gary, he’s a plumber, to get
a petrol pump. I had to nag him for a
couple of years but he did eventually
get it.’’
Mrs Exell outlined the circum-
stances of how the fire had affected her
and husband Gary’s property, on the
Henty Highway at Haven.
She said panic set in when they went
to use their pump and realised their
hoses were too short.
Mrs Exell said she had been warned
by friend and CFA community edu-
cation officer Jenny McGennisken that
February 7 would be worse than Ash
Wednesday.
She said when Mrs McGennisken
rang her on February 7 to warn of the
approaching fire and told her to get her
fire plan into action, she thought
‘great, I don’t have one’.
Mrs Exell told the commission that
most Haven people were not prepared
for the fire.
‘‘Jenny had told me how badly
attended fire awareness meetings had
been; only three people had turned
up,’’ she said.
‘‘It has taken a fire for us to realise
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PAGE 4 Friday September 18 2009 THE MAIL-TIMES
pre-arranged sector commanders for
the fire ground.
‘‘I learnt preparedness was the
key,’’ he said.
‘‘I also didn’t have pre-arranged
sector commanders. We had the inci-
dent management right but we prob-
ably didn’t have the ground manage-
ment quite right.’’
Mr Russell said the CFA, Depart-
ment of Sustainability and Environ-
ment and police had met before Black
Saturday and had issued warnings for
Thursday and Friday but ‘Saturday
was going to be the big day’.
that we should have been listening to
those warnings.’’
Mrs Exell said people needed to put
more thought into being prepared for a
fire.
‘‘I will be making sure there are
plenty of hoses, lots of fittings, steel
buckets, mops,’’ she said.
RIGHT: Senior counsel Tim Tobin,
who grew up in Minyip, represents
victims of the Remlaw fire at the
2009 Victorian Bushfire Royal Com-
mission.
BELOW: Remlaw fire incident con-
troller Dale Russell, left, gives evi-
dence at the Royal Commission
hearing in Horsham yesterday.
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‘‘I, and many other firefighters, had
never seen a day like that before; it was
even worse than Ash Wednesday,’’ he
said.
He told the hearing he issued urgent
threat messages at 12.37pm.
‘‘I made a conscious decision to
activate as many units as I could
initially,’’ he said.
‘‘I needed to get as much equipment
as quickly as I could.’’
Mr Russell said he received a
request for Region 17 firefighters to
help at the Coleraine fire.
• PRICE
‘‘It was a short conversation, I
couldn’t help him,’’ he said.
Mr Russell said the Remlaw fire
was under control by 6pm on February
7 but he didn’t change the fire’s status
to ‘contained’ until 1.35pm on Sunday.
‘‘I wasn’t in a position, or wasn’t
game enough, to change the status on
the Saturday evening,’’ he said.
Mr Russell told the commission that
many farmers in the region had their
own private fire units and were
‘valuable to the CFA’.
Mr Russell said as incident control-
ler he was also in charge of road
Heat on power company
From — page 1
Mr Power did not agree with counsel
assisting the commission, Jack Rush, QC,
who questioned whether Powercor should
use a cherry-picker for a closer inspection
of power poles.
Senior counsel representing Horsham
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blocks, and liaised with a police officer
at the incident control centre, initially
blocking the Wimmera Highway, then
Golf Course Road and the Henty
Highway.
Senior counsel Tim Tobin, repre-
senting Remlaw fire victims, asked if
the drought had affected fire fighting
in the region, in particular the change
from channels to the Wimmera-Mallee
Pipeline.
Mr Russell replied: ‘‘Quite the
opposite. Now we’ve got water where
we’ve never had it before.’’
Conductor
sparked
big blaze
AN electrical fault inspector told the
2009 Bushfire Royal Commission
hearing in Horsham yesterday that the
Remlaw fire was caused by a conduc-
tor falling from the top of a power
pole.
Energy Safe Victoria compliance
officer Warren Knop, who investigates
electrical faults and breaches of elec-
trical safety legislation in Victoria,
said he and Horsham Powercor man-
ager Bruce Gregurke inspected the
Peterson property on February 19.
Mr Knop said the top of power pole
15 had been replaced with a new top
by that stage.
He said the cause of the fire was due
to the conductor falling and making
contact with the ground, 11 metres
from the power pole.
Mr Knop said he had not inspected
the original power pole top because
‘Powercor had not made it available to
us’.
A photo of the new assembly on top
of the power pole was shown to the
hearing.
Mr Knop said the new design was
‘somewhat better than the older type’
because it screwed in tighter and a
spring kept tension on the nuts.
He said Powercor would not provide
information about its maintenance on
the Remlaw line until after the Royal
Commission hearing.
Mr Knop said it was standard
industry practice to inspect power
poles within a five-year period, no
matter what the age and type of the
power pole.
He said it used to be within three
years.
Mr Knop said he was not aware of
an electrical conductor falling off a
pole on the Peterson property and
being replaced by Powercor.
He said Powercor was usually ‘quite
robust’ in reporting its faults.
victims Tim Tobin asked Mr Power about
Mr Peterson’s written statement, which
stated that Powercor workers had visited
his property in September 2005 to fix a
power pole.
Mr Power did not know about this
instance where an electrical conductor
had been detached from a power pole.
M: 0429 691 867
HOME DELIVERY phone 5362 0000
 THE WIMMERA

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since 1873

Phone 5362 0000 MONDAY SEPTEMBER 21 2009 $1.30 (INC. GST)

Costly delays
By LAUREN HENRY
at the hearing
WIMMERA police Superintendent Graeme Arthur
has suggested CFA volunteers and private tankers
use a stamp or identification system to be allowed
access to fires to rectify delays at road blocks.
At a 2009 Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission
hearing in Horsham on Thursday, witnesses told of
road blocks causing significant problems for several
people, including CFA volunteers, people with
private tankers and property owners, trying to access
the Remlaw fire in Horsham on Black Saturday.
Mr Arthur, also the divisional emergency response
co-ordinator, told the commission he was attempting
to introduce ideas from the meeting into the
Wimmera’s standard operating procedures for
managing road blocks in time for this fire season.
Mr Arthur said emergency services personnel met
on February 19 to debrief.
‘‘The intention behind the meeting was to try and
alleviate some of the frustrations that the CFA
experienced on the day and to continue our excellent
relationships that existed and I think one of the
reasons for the success of the day was because of
those relationships,’’ he said.
Mr Arthur said as a result of the meeting a letter,
tendered to the commission, outlined issues such as
communication, the identification of CFA volunteers
and allowing private vehicles into the fire ground.
He said identification through a stamp process or
wristlets were used in other fires.
‘‘But the trouble is that it can be compromised by
others, so it can be handed on to other people who
might want to misuse it,’’ he said.
Mr Arthur said within the current road manage-
ment policy there was scope to declare roads
partially closed.
‘‘In retrospect we would, I think, encourage the
incident controller to consider on the current policy
making a partial road closure at a lot earlier stage to
allow access,’’ he said.
Mr Arthur said he had also discussed with CFA
Region 17 operations manager Dale Russell about
relieving the incident controller of the responsibility
to manage road blocks.
‘‘Dale and I have discussed that and he has
suggested that could even be delegated or someone TOO HOT TO HANDLE: Kalkee cruised to its second straight Horsham District League premiership with an 85-point win over Harrow-
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Continued — page 5

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 Have an opinion? Share your MAIL-TIMES SPECIAL: BUSHFIRE ROYAL COMMISSION IN HORSHAM
thoughts with a letter to
the editor today.
Commission was an interesting line-up
AFTER writing so many stories
on the Remlaw fire seven months
ago it was interesting to look
around at the crowd at the 2009
Victorian Bushfires Royal Com-
mission hearing last week— it
was just as much about who
wasn’t there, as who was there.
CFA paid staff and volunteers
littered the room and witnesses sat
nervously waiting for their call-up
in the conference room at Glen
The scene
Logan, Horsham, which got hotter
as the day went on.
A crowd of about 50 people sat
in the gallery throughout the
day— which started at 9.30am
and dragged on to after 6pm.
The Royal Commission jugger-
naut that rolled into Horsham
included teams of lawyers and
associates and a stream of people
that make the commission flow
seamlessly.
The seriousness of the day was
broken up by some funny mo-
ments, like when technical diffi-
culties forced a young lawyer to
hold the microphone when asking
questions.
He quickly quipped ‘I feel like
a rockstar’ and when a Powercor
manager had to use a mop handle
to point out details on a map.
An interesting on-looker was
Don Carter, the man at the centre
of two law suits after he allegedly
had a gun pointed at him by a
senior Horsham police officer at a
road block.
Surprisingly Horsham Rural
City Council management and
councillors, Member for Lowan
Hugh Delahunty and emergency
services personnel, other than the
CFA, were not at the hearing.
Lauren Henry

Celebrate our 50 years

in the Wimmera with
5 nights on the Gold Coast
The Wimmera Mail-Times is proud to recognize its 50th
anniversary this year, and to celebrate we’re giving away
a Gold Coast holiday!

One lucky reader will win five nights on the Gold Coast
for two adults, staying at the Grande Florida, Miami
Beach, including return airfares and transfers.
To enter, simply tell us which anniversary we’re celebrating
this year, fill in your details and send your entry to:
The Wimmera Mail-Times’ 50th Anniversary Gold
Coast Holiday Competition, C/o The Wimmera
Mail-Times, PO Box 519, Horsham, Vic, 3402.
The Wimmera Mail-Times celebrates its anniversary this year.
Entries close 10am, Wednesday September 30. Prize is valued at $1,200, is not
transferable or redeemable for cash and not valid during school holidays.
Entrants must be 18 years and over. See our classifieds for full terms and COMMISSIONERS: Ron McLeod, Bernard Teague and Susan Pascoe listen to evidence at the 2009
conditions of entry. Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission in Horsham on Thursday. Pictures: PAUL CARRACHER

Help was stuck

Name: __________________________________________________________

Address: _________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

Phone: __________________________________________________________

at road blocks ‘‘Russell was stuck. I couldn’t

The volunteer
By LAUREN HENRY
at the hearing
A CFA volunteer told the 2009
Victorian Bushfire Royal Commis-
sion of how a bus load of firefighters
were denied access through a road
block on their way back home on the
night of the Remlaw fire.
Robert McGennisken told the
hearing the road block guidelines
police follow needed to be changed.
Mr McGennisken, a CFA volun-
teer for 30 years, was a sector
commander for the Haven area
during the Remlaw fire until he had
to leave at 3pm to defend his own
property.
He said firefighters had organised
access through the road block on
their return from the staging ground
at Horsham Showground.
But the firefighters had to plead
with a police officer to let them
through.
‘‘It was very, very frustrating at
the start. We’d had one hell of a day
out on the fire and we didn’t have a
lot of patience left either by that time
of the day,’’ he said.
‘‘With the adrenaline pumping all
day and just the way things were
going, this was the last thing we
needed, especially the firies who put
their time and life on the line and this
was the way they were being
treated.’’
Mr McGennisken said there was
no doubt police were needed at road
blocks but the guidelines were
inflexible and needed to be changed
in time for this fire season.
‘‘These guidelines are fine for
fires in a mountainous area, where
CFA tankers and DSE are the only
PAGE 4 Monday September 21 2009 THE MAIL-TIMES
SPEAKING: CFA’s Dale Russell.
thing that goes into the fire. But in
the situation in the Wimmera and
other grassland areas, that fire is very
fast moving. Time is valuable,’’ he
said.
‘‘Road blocks are good in one
resort, but they caused us so much
grief with private units, where we’d
probably outnumber the CFA tan-
kers, probably close to six or eight to
one.
‘‘A lot of people were trying to
get into the fire ground to gain
access to give us help and were
denied access. We can’t afford that.
We need those people here to help
us.’’
Mr McGennisken told of time
wasted during the Remlaw fire
trying to convince police to let
neighbour Russell Peucker through a
road block.
The property of Mr Peucker, who
was returning from hospital after
getting ash in his eye, was under
threat from the fire.
mention what he actually said be-
cause it would be struck out, but he
required to get access back through
the roadblock and it was very
important for me to get him back
there because it was his property,’’
he said.
‘‘Also in that roadblock there was
the private tanker, carrying 38,000
litres. That was our water supply
which had gone back there to reload.
At the same road block as well there
was some other locals that were
neighbours of ours.’’
Mr McGennisken said he was
lucky to get through by phone to
incident controller Dale Russell,
who approved them access through
the road block.
He said Mr Peucker had told him
a GWMWater maintenance worker
had also been denied access to a
pumping station to reset circuit
breakers so that Horsham’s main
water supply could be reactivated.
Mr McGennisken also told the
hearing about a private tanker, which
looked like a CFA vehicle but
without the red and blue lights on
top, was not allowed through one
road block but was able to get
through another road block.
Mr McGennisken said private
units were integral with the deploy-
ment of tankers and for asset
protection.
‘‘We just didn’t have enough CFA
tankers to do what was required,’’ he
said.
‘‘The speed of the thing was the
problem, so was the time that we had
to do this was— we had short,
limited time, limited resources.
I know they were coming in as
fast as they possibly could, but we
needed them yesterday. That’s how
quick it was.’’
HOME DELIVERY phone 5362 0000
 WIMMERA MAIL-TIMES SPECIAL: BUSHFIRE ROYAL COMMISSION IN HORSHAM

Veteran calls for change

By LAUREN HENRY
at the meeting
AN experienced CFA air ob-
server has called for aircraft to
have a designated radio fre-
quency to communicate with
firefighters on the ground fol-
lowing issues he experienced
during the Remlaw fire.
Trevor Coulthard, who has
been associated with the CFA
for 40 years, told the 2009
Victorian Bushfire Royal Com-
mission on Thursday that fire-
fighters should return to a
Communication
communications system which
was used until the 1990s.
Mr Coulthard outlined his
role as the ‘eyes in the sky’
during the Remlaw fire, report-
ing back to the incident control
centre his observations of the
fire and the conditions.
He told the hearing of his
difficulty in communicating
with the incident control centre
because the radio channel he
was told to use had become too
congested with fire ground
traffic.
Mr Coulthard said a fire
spotter at Mt Arapiles tower
and someone from the
Coleraine fire’s incident control
centre had helped him com-
municate with the region 17
centre to find out what fre-
quency he should use.
‘‘But I really lost a good 20
to 40 minutes of information to
the ground,’’ he said.
Mr Coulthard said he was
surprised not to be debriefed
about his observations when he
returned to the incident control
centre at 5.30pm.
‘‘To this day nobody has
debriefed me on that fire as
such. Having said as such, what
I have meant by that is since
then I have spoken to the three
officers at region 17 head-
quarters about the fire and that
type of thing, but I was sort of
left wondering why they didn’t
want to talk to me when I was
the only person who actually
saw that fire unfold,’’ he said.
‘‘I attended the two debriefs
that were conducted by CFA
and the inter-agency one, and
the issues I spoke about in
relation to communications
debriefing and flight following
were mentioned there.’’
CFA volunteer Robert
McGennisken said he was a
sector commander during the
Remlaw fire but had ‘trouble
with radio contact by having
one radio, but needing two
channels’ in his vehicle.
‘‘The pressure on that day
was so immense because of the
speed and the ferocity of the
fire; it was hell,’’ he said.
Mr McGennisken welcomed
a dedicated channel between
the air observer fire com-
manders on the ground despite
incident controller Dale Russell
telling the hearing earlier that it
probably wouldn’t work be-
cause of the vastness of the
area.
‘‘I think myself a designated
channel would be excellent
because when we’re at the fire
ground we don’t need to travel
over the whole region,’’ he
said.

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Loose caps, ties, spark the blaze
A POWERCOR inspection of Rem-
law Road’s 16 power poles since
Black Saturday found three more ties
The cause cap which fell from the top of the
power pole on the Peterson’s prop-
erty, causing the Remlaw fire, was
each

11 kg

and pole caps were loose.

Powercor’s senior maintenance
planner Paul Gertz, based in Hor-
sham, was called unexpectedly to the
2009 Victorian Bushfire Royal
Commission Horsham hearing on
Thursday to explain about the power
poles in Remlaw Road in more
detail.
Earlier on Thursday, the commis-
sion heard the fire started when a cap
on top of a power pole fell off and hit
the ground.
Mr Gertz said the Remlaw power
line could have vibration-related
issues because of the direction of the
line and the wind effect.
He agreed when cross-examined
that 50 per cent of power lines in the
Wimmera, running east to west,
could be affected by the same
vibration problem.
Mr Gertz said a linesman reported
to him that one of the holes which
secured the cap on the power pole
that caused the fire was enlarged.
‘‘I suspect it was due to a
vibration problem,’’ he said.
Mr Gertz said the wood was still
intact on top of the pole.
The third bolt missing from the
submitted as evidence to the com-
mission on Thursday afternoon.
Red Wine and
When Powercor safety and en-
vironment compliance manager Vin- Garlic Roast Beef
cent Power gave evidence State
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Government solicitors produced the
two screws which were found just
after the fire. kg
The victim’s legal team tendered
the third bolt, thought to be missing
earlier in the day, for a metallurgist’s
inspection to see if it was hammered
or drilled into the pole.
WEST ENTRANCE
Mr Gertz told the hearing he could OPPOSITE MAXIFOODS
PHONE (03) 5381 1365
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Road blocks add

to fire problem EMMETTS RIDE DRIVE
From — page 1

Mr Arthur agreed with counsel assisting the commis-

DEMO DAYS
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at the other end of the fire where the behaviour is
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Mr Russell said Mr Arthur’s suggestion that CFA [3 km north of Horsham on the Kalkee Rd at Jeff Moore’s property]
members have some form of identification to enter and
re-enter road blocks was teriffic, but challenging.
‘‘But we have 60,000 members with a reasonable
turnover, so it would be a challenging aspect to issue and
then reclaim ID cards from people leaving,’’ he said.
Mr Russell said he wasn’t aware until after the fire of WESTFIELD www.emmetts.com.au
a Powercor worker who was held up at a road block on
his way to fixing a pumping station, which allowed
tankers to be refilled and the Horsham water supply to be
reconnected.
HOME DELIVERY phone 5362 0000 Monday September 21 2009 THE MAIL-TIMES PAGE 5