EXTREME temperatures and frighteningly fierce winds are the recipe for a community’s worst nightmare.
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February 7, 2009 produced catastrophic conditions across the state, and led to one of the worst natural disasters Victoria has ever seen.
The fires on the day now known as Black Saturday caused the death of 173 people, decimated communities and – in some cases – wiped out entire towns.
The Wimmera was not immune on that day.
Just after noon, a lone power pole in the middle of a stubble paddock beside Remlaw Road at Vectis sparked a fire that would claim 2300 hectares, 11 houses, multiple sheds, the Horsham Golf Club clubhouse, fencing, stock and thousands of trees.
Fueled by the intense winds and a record 47.4-degree day, the fire skirted Horsham and raced into Haven.
At 4pm, more than 330 personnel from the Country Fire Authority and what is now known as the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning were working on the fire with 57 water tankers.
A wind change drove the fire across the Western Highway before it was stopped at Horsham-Lubeck Road.
The Remlaw fire was deemed under control on February 9 at 12.50pm.
Country Fire Authority District 17 operations manager at the time Dale Russell said the lead-up to the day was unprecedented, with Saturday marking the fourth consecutive Total Fire Ban day in the Wimmera.
“That was probably unheard of in Victoria,” he said.
“During those days we were well aware of what the forecast for Saturday was, and we put a lot of things in place. I actually wrote letters and hand-delivered them to businesses who had permits for welding, cutting, grinding and things like that, removing their ability to work on the Saturday.
“We got people not to work during the week, because we wanted them on the Saturday and days after that.
“Because of the Total Fire Ban days we still needed to have people working, so we staggered their starts.
“We actually ran out of people. We ran some of our staff for 24 hours working in the Incident Control Centre, and that was also the case for our volunteer people on the ground as well.
“Because of the fires happening across Victoria, we had no outside help.
“When I was reporting to my boss he said, 'Do the best you can – we can't send any help – there's fires all over the state'.
“That was as much as I knew until the next day.
“From Saturday through to Wednesday we were able to maintain our incident management capability by the goodwill of people working long hours and working through the night.”
Mr Russell said establishing the on-ground structure during the fire was initially difficult.
“We struggled to get that right on the Saturday afternoon, but we got there,” he said.
“Getting enough people there quickly enough was the main issue for us. We had a number of our firefighters in fire stations manning them, so responses were really quick. But when you have a fire in one place and you're calling trucks from distances away, it's a time and space problem.
“The crews did a great job. They formed up into strike teams and we had our on-scene leaders, and they were able to get in and around all the houses.
“They call it door-to-door firefighting, because you're moving from one to the other – it's almost guerilla warfare.
“That's just one of the things you have to deal with with fencing and small properties.”
Mr Russell said the fire burnt through or around more than 300 properties.
“The wind combined with the temperature of the day and the dryness was always a recipe for disaster,” he said.
“If there is one thing I remember from that fire, it's that there was no loss of life and no significant injuries.
“You can always build another house, but you can't replace a person.”