Aireys Inlet preparedness exercise

//www.youtube.com/embed/OB0hpJnVMD0?autoplay=0&start=0&rel=0

[Image of Emergency Recovery Victoria logo]

[Warning: this video contains images of bushfires that may be distressing to some viewers]

Aaron Ledden, Operations Manager, Otways East, Forest Fire Management Victoria: Aireys Inlet is a beautiful coastal community. It’s my home. We are a small community so over winter the population varies between 600 to 700 people but over summer the population actually expands to about 6000 to 7000.

[Aireys Inlet town sign with Home of the Split Point Lighthouse Surf Coast Shire Great Ocean Road and Refugee Welcome Zone on it]

… and we’re a forested environment and we are prone to bushfires in this part of the world and it’s a high risk environment.

[Image of Aireys Inlet Community Centre and emergency management exercise in progress]

Sue Pigdon, Regional Recovery Manager, Barwon South West, Emergency Recovery Victoria: So we’re exercising today a situation that may likely happen where the Great Ocean Road will be closed in the event of a significant fire and this is Aireys Inlet but it could be Lorne it could be Anglesea any one of the small communities down the Great Ocean Road. Closing that road means that people are going to have to stay in place and we are going to have to provide relief services to community when we can’t actually come in.

Aaron: One of the main benefits to exercises like this is it actually creates those networks. Representatives at the local level are connecting with representatives from the regional and at the state level but it also actually gives an opportunity to really focus in on what is arguably one of the highest risk communities in the state and actually have a really detailed conversation around what are the things that we think are important as local responders or local residents and how are we able to get all the agencies essentially singing to the same song sheet. And ultimately we all want the best outcome for community and conversations like we’re having today actually make that happen.

[David Turnbull reporting the Great Ocean Road is absolutely ablaze with a front on both sides Ash Wednesday February 15 1983]

Ross Girvan, Coast Group Officer, Country Fire Authority: I was a firefighter during Ash Wednesday I was on the Aireys Inlet truck and we had nothing like this in relation to agencies working together and predominantly people were at their own risk and made their own decisions and what we did see was a number of people did leave but we also saw a lot of people that stayed on the beaches and they had quite a horrible experience.

[image of participant in orange hi vis jacket writing on a whiteboard Good comms food and water safety and security]

The benefit for this exercise is it’s certainly going to give us a better understanding of who we connect to in community to improve some of the areas where community are going to go.

Sue: The benefit for Emergency Recovery Victoria to be part of these exercises is really two-fold. Firstly, really effective coordination relies on knowing the people and knowing the landscape and this is the perfect opportunity to do that but it also helps us understand how we can do things better by identifying those gaps and working out how we actually make sure that we make improvements in the planning to support communities.

[The relief in place exercise was a multi-agency project led by Surf Coast Shire Council with Surf Coast Shire logo]

[Emergency Recovery Victoria logo]

[End transcript]

Updated 14 October 2024

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Aireys Inlet preparedness exercise

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