VPO.001.002.0237 _ R

Revi sed 07107 VP Form 287A

STATEMENT

Name: Colleen KEATING

STATES: .

My full name is Colleen Mary KEATING. My date of birth i~· the 12th of

August, 1953. I am a qualified teacher and currently work in retail. I live at 42 Dingley

Dell Road, North WIUTandyte.

I have been a volunteer with the CFA for the past 30 years and I became a

paid employee about four yearS ago. I have six years experience working as a Fire

Tower Operator. To become a Fire Tower Operator you are req1.rired to attend a tower

for two years in a trainee capacity. The role of the Fire Tower Operator is to observe

smoke.from :fires, take a bearing and liaise with other towers to detennine the origin of

the fire. If you are able to get three cross bearings a fire can be pin pointed to between 5

feet or 5 metres. One bearing can allow the pin pointing of a fire to about 50 metres

with good maps. The tower operator whose area the fire is in, contac1B Vic fire to report,

the whereabouts and size offire.

I also volunteer at the Kangaroo Ground Incident Control Centre and am a

trained radio operator. I consider that J am very knowledgeable in this area.

I was employed by Region 13 CF A to work at the Kangaroo Ground Fire

Tower between the 12th of January to the 30th of April, 2009 on Red Alert Da~ and

Total Fire Ban days. A Red Alert Day is a high fire danger day where there is a high

reading for grass and forest fire index of35. Other Towers are manned'for the whole

summer period but there is not enough funding to support more hours at this tower.

'This is a problem for the other towers as they camot get an accurate pin point of fire

origins without at least two bearings. Mt. st. Leonard's, Prettr Sally and Kangaroo

Ground Fire Towers share bearings. We all look into the same areas but from different

S/tement of KEATING, Colleen Page 1 of 13

VPO.001.002.0238_R.

Revised 07/07 VP Form 287A

locations. Parts of the southern fuce of ilie Kinglake range such as Bowden Spur is an

area that only the operator from the Kangaroo Ground Fire Tower can see into.

An sightings of fires clearly out of control in areas must be reported to

Region 13 head quarter!: or Region 13 Duty Officer on 97120317. Ano~er

responsibility I have is to give relevant :infOlmation about the size and rate of spread of

fires Via the fire ground channel to ilie relevant fire captains or lieutenants. I don't have

to perform this task when there is a nominated Incident Co~ol Centre (ICC). Instead I

phone these details direct to the ICC.

The Kangaroo Ground Fire Tower is located on the Eltham Yarra Glen Road

and about 200 metres from the Kangaroo Ground - st. Andrews Road, Kangaroo

Ground. The Tower is approximately 15 metres high and is on top of Picnic Hill. It has

an excellent 360 degree view of Melbourne and beyond and on a good day you can see

ihe other side of Ballarat. I use my own binoculars and the map on the wall is so old,

ilie Dandenong ranges are not Par!: of it This map is an old Board ofWarks Map and ifil

not a normal filca1e map because fue wall is too smaIl. It doesn't even have a lot offue

/iltreets that are in the Melways. I work from the Melways which is very difficult when

you have to calibrate each page. Vic Fire wants a Melwa)'!l reference number when

reporting a fire. I have a book of Vic Maps which I also use when giving the local

Statement of KEATING. Colleen Page 2 of 13

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VPO.001.002.0239_fl

Revised 07/07 VP Form 287A

brigades additional instructions. DSE also use Vic Maps and I believe they also have

more comprehensive maps to worl{ with. When reporting a fire to Ballarat Vic Fire the

process of determining the location of the fire is completely different again. A

permanent radio is provided which has to stay on channel 55 aEl the repeater is located in

the Tower. Ifwe change channels the whole of Region 13 will loose communications.

A portable radio is provided which is on channel 54. Operators are supposed to also

listen to channel 61 but we do not have another radio, only a scanner.

Region 13 CF A includes Kinglake in the .north to Rowville in the south and

from Diamond Creek in the west to Christmas Hills in the east This is a massive area.

The radio channel that Region 13 operate on, is channel 54. All jobs are initially given

out on channel 54 and once the control centre is established the job will be run from

what is known as a 'go to' chatmel. Fire officers will talk to each other on this 'go to'

chamiel and the officer· in charge will report back file status of the fire on channel 54.

Kinglake are in Region 13 however they do not have enough repeaters on the mountain

to access channel 54. ' They then have to use channel 61 which is the main chll!lIfeHor

Region 14. The danger of this is that they will not hear that a fire or wind change is

heading in their direction.

On Friday the 6th ofFebruaxy, 2009 I received a pager message that gave me

the weather warnings for the following day.

On Saturday the 7th of February, 2009 !. commenced work at 9:00 am. I

notified channels 61 and 54 that I was 'on watch' and I phoned 1800 pagers that I was

'on watch' also. This was advising all Lower Yarra Group personnel that I was

working. Lower Yarra Group is a group of brigades that co-ordinate together and run out of the Kangaroo Ground ICC. I also gave the weafiler as being 34 degrees, wind 35

kilometres per hour, gusting 55 and relative humidity of 17%. I received that page back

to my own pager within 30 seconds.

At 10:35 am I phoned Mt. Blackwood Tower which if: near Ballarat and was

advised that the wind speed from there was gusting at 70 kph from the north. I knew

'that stronger winds were heading towards me.

Statement of KEA TIN G, ColJee n , Page 3,of 13

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VPO.001.002.0240_ R

Revised 07107 VP Form 287 A

At 11 :35 am 1 put a weather alert out via the pager system. It said that there

was a large dust stann imminent from the west, the temperature was 39 degrees, relative

humidity 15 and the visibility was poor. The wind was coming from the north at 26 kph

gusting to 60 kph.

At 12:08 pm I observed a large fire coming from Sunday Creek Road,

Kihnore East. I took bearing of the fire and it was 336 degrees from Kangaroo Ground

Tower and around 24 to 26 degrees from Pretty Sally. It was heading towardll the Blue

Gum Pine Plantation imd was building fast 1 phoned ,?Y boss who was 1he ICC

controller at Kangaroo Ground ICC on that day, Jason LA WREN CE on his mobile

phone and conveyed this infonnation immediately.

Sometime between 12:08 pin and 12:30 pm I could smell the smoke from 1his

fire. The fire was travelling in a south easterly direction towards Pretty Sally at 1his

stage.

Between 12:00 pm and 1:00 pm r phoned the tower at Mt. St Leonards as I

could see a smoke sighting like an atom bomb coming from the Bunyip fire. Mt. St

Leonards confinne~ that this fire was spotting into Gembrook He also confinned that

the Kilmore East fire was headed in a south easterly direction towards the Pretty Sally

Tower.

At 1:00 pm I put out an urgent page stating that there was a strong smell of

sm oke from the Kihnore area. The temperature was 41 degrees. wind 39 and gusting to

55, relative humidity13, visibility poor.

At 1:10 pm I heard that Wattle Glen and North Warrandyte units were tunring

out to a suspect fire in Bellbird Lane in Kangaroo Ground. I received a call from the

ICC and told him that 1here did not appear to be a fire in the area and it was most likely

the smoke corning from 1he Kilmore East fire.

Statement of KEA TI N G, Collee n Page 4 of 13

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VPO.001.002.0241_R

Revised 07/07 VP Form 287A

At 1:12 pm I oontacted 1800 p~en; to request that the weather warning

message be sent out as it had not gone out yet and numerous fire calls were coming

through. I was told that they could not do it yet because it was not a priority. I was

very surprised by this as the weather conditions are a priority as units were getting sent

to fhlse alarms which tied up resources. The page came through at 2:30 am the neAi

moming!

At 2:00 pm Gavin McCORMACK arrived for the second shift. I stayed on

because of the enonnous work load. We watched the fires in 360 degree area which

included the fires at Kihnore East, Wondong and lower down the mountain in areas

such as Arthurs Creek, .Strathewen, St. Andrews, North Warrandyte, Warrandyte and

Research. This meant that we were covering the whole area from Kilinore East, to

Chrisim as Hills and from Kinglake to Rowville at the bottom of the Dandenongs.

The smoke cloud fi·om the Kihnore East fire was about 3000 feet in the air

above our tower. It rBI). from the Wandong, Kilmore area NW to SE of our tower. It

was very wide at its point of origin. So much so that we could not see any of the M t.

Disappointment Range, It was all covered in smoke. It was thinner as it reached higher

into the area l;mt was still very large and threatening and was really pumping up arid

putting out a lot of smoke high into the sky.

, . At 2:12 pm I phoned Peter COLEMAN at the Pretty Sally Tower to Bee if the

Kihnore East fire had crossed the freeway and he confinned that it had jumped the

freeway and was he~ded towards the Mt. Disappointment and Kinglake West area. I

phoned Jason on his mobile from the Tower. This number is 97120446 but I am not

sure of Jason's number. Jason had previously told me that as soon as the fire had .

jumped the freeway I had to notifjr him. I recall telling the person that answered the

phone to interrupt Jason and convey this message because it was urgent. Kangaroo

Ground ICC is 97120762 or 97120317.

At 2:13 pm I phoned the ICC again to tell Jason LAWRENCE that burnt

leaveR were dl'Opping on the Tower.

Statement of KEATING. Colleen Page~, of 13

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VPO.001 ;002.0242 _ R

ReVised 07/07 VP Form 287A

At 2 :30 pm I received a call from duty officer at Lower Yarra ICC, Peter

CUMMINGS who asked if there was any smoke showing at Hurstbridge. I could not

see any and conveyed this infonnation.

At 2:36 pm I phoned Lower Yarra ICC to advise Jason that Tim from Strath

Tower wa.q being evacuated. Strath Tower is nut by Melbourne Water and is located on

Mt. ROBINSON to the north of Kinglake West and just south ofFlowerdale. I did not

record how I knew this information but I would have been told from one of the other

Towers. This was al~o when Wandong North was being evacuated.

At 3:02 pm I put out another telephone message to the paging service with a

weather update. The temperature was 43 degrees, wind north north - west average 60

kph and gusting at 71 kph, relative humidity 12, visibility poor and sm oke now in the

area

At 3:00 pm in the middle of the afremoon, about an hour· before the St

Andrews fire arrived, Gavin and I noticed whBt appeared to be a spot fire from the large

Wandong fire just slowly puffing above some trees, behind a ridge west of Arthurs

Creek but up in the hills around U'pper Plenty/Lobb Hill area. This is in the Region 14

CFA and DSE areas and not too fur from the Yan Yean Reservoir. EveI)' so often it

would die down to nothing and then puffup again. This continued for nearly an hour as

'they tried to put it out We thong.ht this to be connected to the Kilm ore East fire which

we thoughtwas close to 'the spot fire.

At 3:10 pm I received a call from Adrian BIRCH from Lower Yarra ICC

asking if ther~ was any smoke in the old Kinglake Road on the eastern. sideof.Mt

Everard which is in the St Andrews/Christmas Hills area. I could not see any smoke at

this time.

At 3:13 pm I received a call on channel 55 that a unit was looking for a

smoke sighting at Mt. Everard and I notified them that we could not see anything.

Statement of KEATING, Colleen Page 6 of 13

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VPO.OOi .002.0243_R.

Revised 07/07 VP Fc.m 287A

At 3:15 pm Leading Senior Constable Andrew BRICK attended at the Tower

and advised that the fire was spotting into Upper Plenty and south of the Wallan­

Whittlesea Road. BRICK told me to look for ember!: in oW' area.

At 3:16 pm I contacted the ICC to relay and alerted Jason ofthir;: information.

At 4:00 pm I telephoned the ICC again because we received information from

a resident from Smifu Gully that she had embers in her house. Her name was Sophina

and she spoke to Matthew SHARP who is the son of a trainee at the tower whose name

is .Tulie SHARP.

At 4:05 pm I heard a fire calIon channel 54 relating to Hilderbrand Road and

Hewitts Road, St. Andrews and a request was sentfor 10 further tankers. It was at this

tlme that the fire hit St. Andrews. I coUld not see flames in this area There was only a

lot of black smoke sitting low to the ground and I concluded from this that there was a

grass fire that was moving at an incredible speed. 'This did not behave like a grass fire

in that it did not run. I observed smoke in the ijilderbrand Road, St Andrews area

which extended from the point of origin of fire which was Hewetts Road and ". '. i, •. :,." ':.' '.' . . '

Hilderbrand Road and it extended in a west to east direction for 10 to '15 kilometres to

'the eas:tern end of Wild Dog Road. It looked like it hitthe area in one go rather th~ a

run of fire. I can only describe it as being like a bomb had just been dropped. The

sm.oke looked to be dark grey smoke at the bottom and light grey at the top. This fu'e

never sat up and I could see the top of the Kinglake Ranges which were covered in a

grey haze and the sky was blue above. A normal fire would mask this area but this fire

did not r could not see the connection of this fire and 'the fire corning from Kilrnore

East. I can only conclude that this was a severe ember attack corn~ng from the

Humevale spot fire and this spot fire had corne from the Kihnore East fire.

At 5:30 pm I radioed channel 54 Vic Fire and advised 1hat there was smoke

from Skyline Road· and Glenview Road, Chrisbnas Hills. This was confirm ed by Mt.

St. Leonardl:l Tower.

.Statement of KEATING. Colleen Page 7 of 13

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VPO.001.002.0244 _ P..

Revised 07/07 VP Form 287A

At 5:45 pm I observed what I described as a wild fire, heading to Buttennans

Track and Skyline Road, St. Andrews and tlwn towards Christmas Hills in an easterly

cfu·ectioIl.· The bearing was between 60 and 65 which is a large spread of fire at an

unbelieVBbl~ rate of speed, This fire was uncontrollable and spreading. I tried

unsuccessfully to get the call through to channel 54 hut there waF too much radio traffic.

I then changed to channel 61 which is Region 14 and notified them of the fire. I was

hoping that the operator of 61 would tell the operator of 54 as they are in the same

building. This was the only way that I thought that I I;:ould report the fire, '

At 5:46 pm we noticed that there were several spot fires coming from the St

Andrews fire towards Panton Hill, Diamond Creek and the whole area south ofSt.

Andrews. Gavin and I mapped 1hese fires as follows;

Mittens Bridge and Jacksons Road, st. Andrews - bearing 12 .

Bottom of Bowden Spur, st. Andrews - bearing 20

Bald Spur, St. Andrews - bearing 25 '

Rifle Range Road, St Andrews - bearing 43 and 45

One Tree Hill, St. Andrews - bearing 50

SkyJine Road, st. Andrews - bealing 55 and 60 to 65

Kinglake, st. Andrews - bearing 30

Back ofMt. Jerusalem, St Andrews - bearing 35

Mt Everard Road, Sf. Andrews - bearing 40

Yarra Glen (over ridge) - bearing 70 to 76

We phoned Lower Yarra ICC mapping department so that they could see

what we were looldng at.

Statement of KEA TI NG, Co lieen Page80f n

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VPO.001.002.0245_fZ

Revised 07107 VP Form 287A

I made a further call to let the ICC know that Sugarloaf Road, Kinglake West

. was now burning neal' Jack Creek Road and RWll'ring Creek Road, Kinglake West. I did

not record the tim e.

I then heard that there was a fire in Beenak Road, between Wandin East and

Seville. This was not our area but it looked to be a very large spot fire which r believed

was from the Bunyip fire.

At 6:24 pm I spoke to Jim DUSTING who was a member of the Lower Yarra

ICC and I thinlc out on the road at the time. I told him that tite fire at Ridge Road,

Christmas Hills had 200 feet high flames and was spotting to the south and about one

kilometre ahead of i1Belf I spoke to Jason LAWRENCE on his mobile to report the

flames at Ridge Road, Christmas Hills to report that the smoke was now 3000 feet high.

I noticed that this flame stayed in the area for the following 90 minutes and bumt in the

same spot

At the same time I received a call. from Dave.COOPER who is a duty officer

at the Lower Yarra ICC. Dave asked about the spread of the fire at St Andrews and I

could see that it was strongest at Mittons Bridge, St Andrews. I determined this

because the smoke was very black in this area. I also told him that the biggest problem

was in the Ridge Road, Christmas Hills axea just behind the Winneki Trea1ment Plant.

There was huge spotting of one kilometre to the south and there were flames rolling

down the hills by this stage. I believe that the fire was within three to four kilometres of

the treatment plant at this time.

At 6:42 pm I telephoned the Kangaroo Ground. ICC and advised them that the

area of Rifle Range Road and Smiths Gully Road, St Andrews had built and was s1ill

building fast and that we needed asset Pl'Otection. I could not give the property mun bers

because no-one is allowed to have Esmap due to privacy reasons. These maps were like

Vic Maps but they had house numbers and names on them and details of their funn

sheds etc. The wind change wasn't due until 9:00 pm and we were told this the

previous night via the paging system. No warnings were given about the early weather

change and I am e:x.iremely upset about this as airports are updated congtantly with Stetement of KEATING, Colleen Page 90t 13

VPO.001.002.0246-~

Revised 07/07 VP Form 287A

possible weather changes and thif: infonnation should have been provided to the

relevant personnel on the day.

At this time I noticed that the wind direction had changed. During the whole

day there was a north to north-west wind and the change brought the wind from the

south to south-east. The wind speed was over 90 kph. Gavin put out a Red Flag

Warning over channel 55 and advised that we had seen lightening strikes on the

Kinglake West Ridge which extends east to Christmas Hills.

When the wind changed it was ferocious. The tower shook violent1y and

everything inside wa~ blown around. I 1hough~ for a moment that we were going to

loose the tower. I have provided police with a copy of the Beaufort Scale which is a

universally used nwnerical measuring scale which is used to rate the strength of the

wind. The scale ranges from 0 for calm through to 12 for winds greater than 120 kmlh.

The wind measurements that I took on this day were using an anemometer.

This is an instrument used to measure wind speed and directions and sits an the roof of

1he tower. All wind measurements referred to in this s1atement were recorded by this

machine.

I immediately spoke to 1he Lower Yana ICC to request that they urgently put

this message out over the other channels. I was angry that in tlus technologlcal ~or1d we cannot have better weather warnings especially when people's lives are at risk

during a bush fire. I do not knOVl~ whether this warning was given out due to our limited

radio communication ability.

Sometime soon after and on the western flank of the fire, we observed flames

travelling in a north west direction up the gullies up Jacksoru: Road., Stra1hewen. The

fire in this area ran up fue hills and even faster down which is the opposite too normal

fire behaviour. I put his down to more dry fuel in certain areas but I am not sure. It also

extended to Eagles Nest Road. At the same time on the eastern flank of the fire, the fire

slowed but kept slowly rolling down the hills in a sou1herly directly and looked like lava

Statement of KEATING, Colleen Page 10 of 13

VPO.001.002.0247 _f.

Revised 07/07 VP Form 287 A

flowing over the hills from the Buttemlans Track, Ridge Road, Chris1rnas Hills - St.

Andrews. The area between both of these flanks was hidden by thick smoke. We did

not see the fire go up Bowden Spur at the st. AndrewslHeidelberg Road as the smoke

hid it all. I con'tacted the Lower Yarra ICC to convey this infonnation because we were

concerned about asset protection. An hour later the flames were still coming in a

southerly direction towards the Wumekie Dam.

At this time 1 had assumed that Lower Yarra ICC was running the fire. There

was so much radio traffic on Vic Fire and I had also attempted to phone the silent

number at Vic Fire and there was no response. It had become pointless to continue to

attempt to contact Vic Fire. I have since bec~e aware that someone up in the Kilmore

area was I1l11lling the fire and not the Low er Yarra ICC who I had been reporting to.

At 9:26 pm a friend of a local resident, Daniel THOMAS phoned to request

that we contact a local resident in' Beale Avenue, Strathewan by the name of Trent

PARSONS on 0438082681. I passed this infonnation to the Lower Yarra ICC. We

then looked "the tower and "there were about 30 sightseers who had come up to the tower . . who also left.

Numerous' people climbed "the tower and came up during. the day for

infonnation. I COuld. see that the fire was heading towards us and was out of control and

I told them to leave the area. inimediately. The fire was heading rapidly south towards

Panton Hill, Christmas Hills, K8ngaroo Ground, Hurstbridge, Research, North

Warrandyte, Warrandyte and Wonga Park. There was also danger of it spotting into

these areas and further to the south. The fire had already spotted into Yarra Glen and

had developed into a dangeroUEI fire in that area.

The following day I worked as a volunteer at the King1ake West

Communication's van which was situated at Kinglake West Fire Station. This entailed

co-ordinating strike teams in relation to continuing spot fires, body s~arches and helping

the local residents wi"th fresh water.

Steternent of KEA TI N G, Co lIee n Page 11 of 1Z,

VPO.OOj .002.0248_R..

Revised 07/07 VPForm 237A

I have seen many fires over the years and this fire wa!~ unlike anything that I

had seen before. It was undoubtedly a \Vild Fire that was completely out of control.

Under normal conditions you see the start of a fire and watch it build. On this occasion

the fire travelled through the spotting of emberlil via catastrophic winds.

I have provided police with a .map (Kihnore EastlIvlurrindindi Complex

South: Whittlesea, Nink. and I~lake DivisioIls - Overview ·Map). I have plotted on

this map 10 of the spot firelil that originated from the St. Andrews fire.

I would like to see the following recommendations. A better radio an:d

paging communication system should be implemented, more reliable and constantly

. updated weather warning 'system, upgra.cling and proper funding of fire towers and 8

new fire warning system for the public. I would also like to see an overluml of the

advice given to the public in relation to staying to fight a fire and evacuation. The

public vyho stayed to protect their homes on this day could not have made this decision

with all of the required infonnation necessary for an informed decision.

Most importantly I would like to see one fire fighting body in charge of all

Victorian fires. This could incorporate paid and volunteer groups but would ensure one

comprehensive and well co-ordinated response to fighting fires utilising all. of the skills ,

of the three fire fighting bodies.

(Colleen KEATING)

Statem ent taken and signature witnessed oy me at 10:00 AM on 8/412009 atEltham .

Marianne LtJTTlCK Detective S mor Constable 33945

Statement of KEATING, Colleen Page 12 of 13

(00"

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· VPO.001.002.0249_R

Revised 07/07 VP Form 28711

I hereby acknowledge that tlris statement iE/true and correct and I make it in the belief that a person making a false statement in the circumstances is liable to the penalties of peJ.jury.

(Colleen KEATING).

Acknowledgmentmade and signature witnessed byrne at 10:OOAM on 8/4/2009 at Eltham

Marianne LUTTICK Detective Senior Constable 33945

Sterementof KEATING. Colleen Page 13 of 13