Thread: VALE

My condolences to the family, friends and fellow firefighters.

Baz.

Always sad to hear of lost lives - especially when the victims are working to help their fellow man.

Thoughts are with the families, friends and acquaintances.

Sad news indeed...

Two firefighters, a man in his 30s and a young woman in her late teens, have died after a tree fell on their vehicle as they battled a large bushfire in a remote part of Victoria's alpine region.

Police believe the pair were in their emergency vehicle when it was struck by a falling tree around 3.35pm (AEDT).

Emergency services tried to reach the scene but were forced back because of fire and hazardous conditions.

Crews finally reached the fire ground around 8.10pm.

The dead man is believed to be from Corryong and the young woman from Tallandoon.

The Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) said the firefighters were working on the Harrietville fire burning near Mount Hotham.

The Australian Workers Union (AWU) Victorian secretary Cesar Melhem said two DSE firefighters were killed in the line of duty.

Mr Melhem said DSE firefighters were "unsung heroes" and there was little recognition of their work because they were not usually seen, working behind the fire lines.

"These DSE firefighters work in the most horrific conditions imaginable, away from the big centres, out in the bush, and with very little recognition for their heroic contribution to this state," he said in a statement.

"They have died heroes, which will be small comfort to those that grieve them."

DSE and CFA firefighters have been making the most of mild weather conditions working around the clock to control hotspots and build containment lines around the fire, but have faced a challenge in getting into isolated locations where it is still burning.

Crews have had to trek for more than two hours to get to hard-to-reach locations to construct control lines to help stop the spread of the fire if it flared up again, Ovens incident controller Tony Long said earlier on Wednesday.

"Where crews can't walk into the affected areas, we use rappel crews who rappel down ropes from a hovering helicopter carrying their gear to put out hot spots," Mr Long said.

The Harrietville fire has burned 27,000 hectares since it was started by lightning on January 21 and Mr Long said it would continue to burn until the alpine region received significant rain.

The deaths come a month after Peter Cramer, a DSE firefighter and CFA volunteer from Tyers in Gippsland, died while working on bushfires in Tasmania.

Mr Cramer, 61, died on January 13 at Taranna, east of Hobart, while working on foot to identify potential containment lines on the southern boundary of the Forcett fire about two to three kilometres from the active fire edge.


Firefighters die battling large Victorian blaze

Very sad indeed.

My condolences to all those concerned.

Rest In Peace

They were both local's to the general area - One from Tallandoon and the other from Corryong. It has hit those communities quite hard.

I've been manning some of the Road Blocks near Harrietville and I know first-hand how sad this incident is for the crews working tirelessly up here