Tuesday, 4 February 2025

Ministers statements: bushfires

Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Premier) (14:08): Right now, today, and indeed for many weeks, hundreds and hundreds of fire personnel and volunteers from across the CFA, FRV and Forest Fire Management Victoria are out on the ground fighting fires in our state. For the Grampians fires that started back on 16 December as a result of dry lightning, they have worked for weeks tirelessly to save homes and lives against some of the largest fire fronts our state has ever seen.

These are the same men and women who spent their Christmas and their new year away from their families and friends, in tents, in trucks and in base camps. Many of them are volunteers, and they have come from every corner of our state and even further afield. I want to say thank you and show gratitude for the support of the interstate personnel from South Australia, the ACT, Queensland and the Northern Territory who have travelled away from their families, their jobs and their communities. Can I also say I had the opportunity to thank them personally, with the Minister for Emergency Services, when we visited the Horsham incident control centre in late December. We give them thanks because not only do they jump on the trucks to support their own communities; they have travelled long distances to come and support ours.

Right now there are large, dangerous and difficult fires that are happening across the Otways, the Grampians and the Little Desert National Park. The work is far from over and there are many weeks of summer still ahead of us, which is why again there is a role for all of us to do to support our firefighters and the volunteers. There is work we can do. We can stay up to date, we can download the VicEmergency app and we can be alert to local conditions. We do this because we know it saves lives. On behalf of the government and the Victorian community, I want to thank those hundreds and hundreds of personnel who have been working around the clock for weeks to keep our community safe.