VIC: Thousands gather to honour five killed in bushfire

AAP General News (Australia)
12-19-1998
VIC: Thousands gather to honour five killed in bushfire

MELBOURNE, Dec 19 AAP - A large fire bell tolled five times across Geelong's Kardinia Park
today as thousands gathered to remember five volunteer fire-fighters killed in the Linton
bushfire tragedy earlier this month.

The memorial service was briefly interrupted in the final moments when a man grabbed the
microphone and called for a royal commission into bushfires. He was questioned by police then
ordered to leave the venue.

Governor-General Sir William Deane told an audience including Victorian Premier Jeff
Kennett and Opposition leader John Brumby that fighting bushfires had played a vital part in
Australia's development.

"It's not surprising that fighting fires has helped forge, and has become part of, our
national character," he said.

"From early times, we learnt that fire cannot be fought on any scale by people acting
separately.

"From those early times, the ethos of the bushfire brigades has exemplified all that is
best in our nation: mateship, particularly the extraordinary mateship between the members of a
particular brigade, courage, strength, selflessness and dedication.

"And sacrifice, sometimes the ultimate sacrifice when the inevitable danger becomes
reality," he told the crowd of mourners estimated by police to be more than 4,000.

Hundreds of volunteer Country Fire Authority (CFA) personnel from across the state attended
the service, dressed in uniform.

Sir William said the deaths of the five men, all from the Geelong West CFA station,
reminded all Australians of the perils of bushfires.

"The tragic death of your five colleagues led us as a nation at the beginning of summer to
pause and take stock of the importance and danger of your work," he said.

As part of the ceremony, all CFA personnel pledged to continue serving the community in
firefighting, and they recited a firefighters' prayer.

It read, in part: "Help me embrace a little child before it is too late, or save an older
person from the horror of that fate."

Mr Kennett, the Victorian Governor Sir James Gobbo and others laid wreaths for the dead
firefighters: Matthew Armstrong, Stuart Davidson, Christopher Evans, Jason Thomas and Garry
Vredeveldt (Vredeveldt).

The five died on December 2 at Linton, near Ballarat in western Victoria, after their fire
truck became trapped when a change in wind direction turned the fire back on them.

It was the worst loss of life for Victorian firefighters since the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires
that claimed 13 of their number.

The Ash Wednesday fires devastated parts of both South Australia and Victoria with a total
loss of life in Victoria at 47 (one of whom died three weeks after the event) and 28 in South
Australia.

The five men killed earlier this month had separate funerals in Geelong over the past ten
days.

An appeal launched by Geelong authorities for the families of the dead has raised $305,000,
with a benefit concert to be held in Geelong on Monday night expected to raise another $16,000
for the fund.

AAP gf/jnb

KEYWORD: BUSHFIRE VIC BENEFIT NIGHTLEAD

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