Established in 1981 as the
proudly serving Melton and Moorabool
31 MARCH, 2026
Easter Egg-citement (Damjan Janevski) 540306_01
Egg-citement is brewing as kids across Melbourne’s north-west dream of what chocolatey goodness the Easter bunny will deliver this Sunday. Many will spend their weekend filling up on sweet treats, baking hot cross buns and attending Easter celebrations with their families. Emily, 10 (pictured) is ready to hunt down any chocolate eggs the Easter bunny leaves behind and fill her basket to the brim.
Fire truck failure By Sam Porter Firefighters responding to a house fi re in Taylors Hill on 18 March battled the blaze without sufficient water, after the fi rst truck on scene suffered a critical pump failure – raising serious concerns about an ageing fleet and equipment reliability. Caroline Springs fi refighter Anthony Cristofaro said it was a “frustrating” experience. “We turned up ready to do our job and the truck couldn’t deliver water. That’s not something any fi refighter should ever have to deal with on the fi reground,” Mr Cristofaro said. “You feel frustrated and exposed. You train to respond immediately, and instead you’re dealing with a failure that shouldn’t happen in the fi rst place.” After the water pump failure in Taylors
Hill, the Caroline Springs crew was forced to source a replacement truck from Warrnambool, requiring a seven-hour round trip before a fully operational appliance could be brought back into service. The United Firefighters Union (UFU) claims the incident highlights a statewide crisis of an ageing fleet that is not being replaced, causing service gaps and heightened risks to life, property, and fi refighter safety. In response to the union’s claims, a Fire Rescue Victoria spokesperson said the organisation ensures that appropriate equipment is deployed to all emergencies and that FRV was “continuing to make strong progress in upgrading and replacing its fleet of more than 200 fi refighting vehicles”. However, according to the UFU, 65 per
cent of Fire Rescue Victoria’s (FRV) fleet – 138 of 213 trucks – are past their service life. The UFU said the CFA (Country Fire Authority) fleet faces similar challenges, with 792 CFA tankers currently out of date and deemed unsafe, including 230 tankers that are more than 31 years old. The UFU said Melbourne’s west is where the pressure is most visible, but the underlying issue is statewide and systemic. UFU secretary Peter Marshall said the Taylors Hill incident was “completely unacceptable”. “Firefighters are being sent out with equipment they can’t rely on. When that fails, it’s not just a mechanical issue, it’s a direct risk to lives and property,” he said. UFU reported about one-third of metropolitan fi re trucks have been off the road for repairs at any given time due to mechanical faults of ageing appliances.
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The UFU said this means stations across Melbourne are increasingly forced to rely on spare or older appliances, redistribute trucks across districts and, in some cases, respond from further away. “The [state] government has been warned repeatedly. You cannot run a modern fi re service on ageing, failing trucks and expect the community to be protected,” Mr Marshall said. The UFU is calling on the state government to invest significantly in replacing ageing and failing fi re trucks to restore the fi re service to a safe and reliable standard. Last year Commissioner Gavin Freeman said FRV’s medium to long-term planning was based on a target fleet replacement age of 15 years. Continued: Page 8.
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Kathy Danoucaras, Nick Danoucaras and Sam Robertson KND Denture Clinic, 192 Main Road East, St Albans 9364 3677 Also at: Suite 8, 242 Caroline Springs Boulevard, Caroline Springs. 8361 9722
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