Editorial - March (pre-COVID-19)
About this fire season
Our January edition of the Cherry Chatter went to print on the December 20 th , 2019 which is a day we would all prefer to be able to forget. On a catastrophic fire ban day, the unthinkable happened and a bushfire took hold at Cudlee Creek. We all know what happened on that day and for weeks following both in the Adelaide Hills and then on Kangaroo Island. The impact of these fires on those people that lived in the path of the fires, the wildlife the business and of course the volunteers and emergency services has been the focus of so much attention in the news and on social media.
Our CFS brigade, including the Air Support crew have been actively involved in all the major fires this season.
Apart from the big fires we had 3 local fires in one week.
The first was a fire started by an angle grinder in Ironbank. It escalated quite quickly and thanks to the efforts of the local CFS brigades and the Bombers it was contained before it got into the heavy scrub and before it impacted on other properties. Then a fire started a couple of days later at Clarendon also from an angle grinder. A number of houses were threatened by this fire and the CFS with the support from the bombers manage to contain it from crossing Potter Road and potentially burning through to Cherry Gardens.
The next day a fire started in Scotts Creek purportedly from someone smoking beehives and again thanks to the efforts of the CFS and the bombers it was contained before getting into the scrub of the conservation park. All 3 of these fires had the potential, on a bad fire ban day to threaten our district. I am sure that many of the people around Lobethal, Woodside , Charleston, Mount Torrens, Gumeracha never really imagined that a fire such as the Cudlee Creek one would impact them but on a catastrophic fire ban day anything can happen. It reinforces the need for everyone in the Adelaide Hills to have a bushfire plan. While this year’s fire season appears to be behind us use the next few months to be prepared for the next season.
It has been interesting to see Cherry Gardens in the news quite a lot this year.
The Recreation Ground found themselves in the limelight as a player in the Sports Rorts affair. You can read more about this in the Recreation Ground section of this edition. Very frustrating for them to have rated so highly in the assessment by Sports Australia only to have their application not funded due to a decision by the Federal Government.
Also, there was quite a number of locals turned up to the public meeting regarding the council boundary issue previously discussed in an earlier edition of Cherry Chatter. The Weekender Herald published an article about the meeting. A subcommittee has been formed to look further into the process and put together a formal application.
Finally, there is a petition the Cherry Gardens Community Association is backing to present to the CFS headquarters to allow our Cherry Gardens brigade to be allowed to use their siren to warn residents if there is a fire in our district. The CFS has instructed our brigade not to use the siren as they believe residents should use the AM radio station, 891 Adelaide, and the Alert SA APP on your phone to get fire warnings and not rely on the siren. Our petition is seeking to have this ban overturned as we believe that the siren should be included as part of the emergency warning system. If you have not signed it yet then please track down one of the committee or sign one of the forms at the CFS or the Recreation Ground.
AGM
Next meeting was the AGM – at 7.30pm on March 11th at the Memorial Hall.
Great to see one new member – welcome Mel Williams to the Cherry Chatter gang!