Burn pile reignition prompts hot weather warning

The reignited burn pile, in  Somerville, has prompted a warning from Somerville Fire Brigade Captain, Joshua Caron who said this was a rare ignition. 

“I know we tell people to prepare their properties, but they need to maintain them. Especially where we are, on the rural-urban interface,” Joshua said. 

“Removing those significant fuel loads from around your house, making sure trees are maintained and grass is cut when the weather is fine to do this.” 

With conditions still extremely dry, the blaze moved quickly and required support from a number of neighbouring CFA brigades and aircraft. Wind and long grass were contributing factors to the fast-moving nature of the fire. 

Crews brought the fire under control within 30 minutes and were on scene for over three hours.  

Joshua wanted to reinforce that the outlook is dry for the Mornington Peninsula over March so having a fire plan in place could be lifesaving. 

“Even on what might seem like a low-risk day, make sure you always have that fire plan in place and that you are monitoring conditions,” Joshua said. 

“This fire occurred on the kind of day where your average person wasn’t thinking about it being a fire risk day, but we are still in fire season.” 

Captain Caron was incredibly grateful for the work of firefighters on the day. 

“We have such an incredible group of brigades nearby and the initial attack from firefighters from Moorooduc, Tyabb and Somerville did an amazing job to quickly stop the spread of the fire.”