“Alpine Radio is your official Emergency Services Broadcaster in the Kiewa and Ovens Valleys.  Thanks to our tremendous volunteers, we were able to broadcast numerous warnings put out by Forest Fire Management Victoria over the last two weeks since the lightning started several bushfires on New Year’s Eve.  On Saturday 4th January we had several volunteers who broadcast (on a roster basis) right through the night ensuring that the Emergency Warnings and Evacuate Now messages were broadcast over the airwaves in a timely manner and in accordance with our agreement with Emergency Management Victoria.  And we were prepared to do it all again last Friday 10th January when, at the last minute, the Emergency Warning was downgraded to Watch and Act, and we were able to cancel the overnight roster.  As it is, Kenny Gilmour and Izzy Raw did a solid 5 hour stint from 7pm to midnight that night, reading the warnings and playing some great music – Izzy is a natural and should be a regular presenter!!  I am very proud of all our volunteers, who have worked tirelessly to keep our community informed through this very difficult time.

We also took a live audio feed from one of the many community meetings (taking the feed from the Alpine Shire Facebook page), and Ian Smith & Bruce Vine had an interview with Deputy Incident Controller Jarrod Hayes from Ovens Incident Control Office on Monday  6th January to update our listeners on the latest events concerning those bushfires.  I hope we got the messages through for people to leave early if that was in their bushfire plan, and, from what I hear, we helped many in our community feel reassured and informed.

Nick Brown,

President, Alpine Radio.


2019/2020 Fire Season –  Understand Risks and Warnings – How Well Do You Know Fire?”

Screen capture from:

http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/charts/viewer/index.shtml