north east regional extra | February 12 - 18, 2020
nemedia.com.au
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February 12 - 18, 2020
Founding hands
By BELINDA HARRISON
IT was 6pm on February 7, 2009 when the first fire started in what would become known as the Beechworth-Mudgegonga fire during the Black Saturday Royal Commission. A tree had fallen on a power line on Buckland Gap Road, Beechworth and ignited the vegetation at the base of the pole. Crews were immediately dispatched but their initial attacks to contain the blaze were unsuccessful due to the location and weather conditions and by 7.10pm warnings were issued for direct ember attacks in the communities of Stanley, Barwidgee Creek and Mudgegonga. Urgent threat messages continued to be issued with a south-westerly change expected to reach the fire ground between 11pm and midnight but with electricity and communications cut off in many areas, getting the message out had to be done by local crews. Firefighting resources were gathered from a number of local Victorian and NSW areas and included 133 CFA and 97 Networked Emergency Organisation (NEO) personnel, 23 CFA appliances, 89 NEO appliances and two aircraft. The firestorm burned fiercely and without care for what stood in its path until just before 4am on Saturday morning when the wind eased and weather conditions settled. But by then the damage had been done. Thirty-eight houses and sheds had been destroyed or damaged and farming equipment and stock lost. But a more devastating and tragic discovery was to be made that Saturday morning when the bodies of locals John and Sue Wilson were found at their property - the fire front having razed their home around midnight on Friday. By the time the fire was finally contained on February 16, it had burnt through 33,577 hectares - 23,500 of that State Park but it took until April 27 to be declared safe. For born and bred Mudgegonga resident Loretta Carroll, who farms beef cattle and sheep on her property, the 2009 Beechworth-Mudgegonga fire hit extremely close to home, with almost 80 percent of her property affected when she lost a hay shed, all her fodder and 47 of her cows.
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◆ HOMESTEAD: Loretta Carroll and horse Elenora look out over their property. PHOTO: Belinda Harrison
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