A chance encounter 40 years on

 

Two school friends lost touch after they left high school 40 years ago.

 

But by coincidence they met again late last year in the Horsham Incident Control Centre during the Grampians fire, where they were both Level 3 incident controllers.

Lachie Gales is now the group officer for Wangaratta Group of brigades and Peter West works for the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action.  

“We were close from about age 14 through to when Peter left to study forestry at ANU,” Lachie said. “I remember hitch hiking to Canberra to visit him.” 

Peter knew that Lachie was a volunteer with CFA, but their paths never crossed. 

“We grew up in Wangaratta and both attended Wangaratta High School,” Peter said. “My sister Wendy still lives there, so during my visits back home I occasionally heard about Lachie from her. 

“When you have kids, you tell them all your stories of growing up and mention names from your past. My kids had heard of Lachie but never met him – like some folklore myth.” 

While Peter was deployed at the Grampians fire over Christmas 2024, he heard that Lachie was arriving on the next deployment.  

“I was in the middle of running an IMT briefing with a room full of people. I looked around and saw this figure entering the room and I instantly knew he was Lachie – a kind of old gentrified Lachie, not the cocky larrikin but a responsible grown-up.”

“I hung back in the crowded meeting room as Peter worked through a full IMT/EMT briefing, not wanting to intrude on his eyeline,” Lachie said. “Clearly, he was a person that displayed empathy and respect and engaged people with a leadership style that impressed me from the outset.” 

At the end of the meeting, Lachie and Peter exchanged an awkward handshake. 

“When we shook hands, I was struck by his height,” Lachie said. “I didn’t remember Peter towering above me at school. He still had plenty of hair and just as unkempt as it was in the 1970s. All I could manage to say was, ‘Well, here we are’.” 

“It felt weird in the context of this busy IMT scene. We were both swept away into IMT changeover, with him having to get his head around the current state of the fire,” Peter said. 

The following day, before Peter travelled back to Gippsland, he looked for Lachie. 

“We shut the door and left the IMT outside,” Peter said. “We chatted about family mostly, then friends and although it felt like I was speaking to a different person, the old Lachie was there 
as well. 

“There was a formal, polite edge to our conversation but a curiously familiar ease at the same time. He was a totally different person. I realised I only knew a fragment of his story and experience but behind the glasses and beard I could still see the Lachie I used to know.” 

“I was really pleased when Peter reappeared in the ICC and suggested we take some time together,” Lachie said. 

“We didn’t get a long time on our own and I was struck by how much I learned about his life. He must have felt interrogated as I peppered him with questions. He was genuinely open and generous in the face of my nervousness. 

“I’ve stayed in touch with a handful of mates from school and was able to talk about them. I married Beth, who was also at school with us, and was falling over myself to show Peter her photo.” 

When Lachie and Peter reflected on their chance encounter, to some extent they were not surprised that their paths had finally crossed given they are both Level 3 incident controllers. 

“One of the best things about IMTs is that you form strong relationships with those you work with and you are constantly running into people from past campaigns and reconnecting,” Peter said. “I like the emergency management family vibe – but this was reconnecting to a new level.” 

“There’s a lot of strength in our IMTs where a disparate group of people, all with varied skill sets and drawn from all over the nation, find themselves united in a common effort to achieve great things,” Lachie said. 

“Peter and I grew up in a regional town and our values were formed by that experience together. That showed up big time in Horsham 40 years later, as we found ourselves sharing the motivation to contribute at the highest level we could to keep our community and our environment safe.” 

 

Submitted by	News and Media