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At the risk of adding to the current 'fire season' paranoia, for guests who may have concerns about bushfires near here, here's our view on it:
The Mountain Rivers property is 40 acres, two-thirds cleared, adjoining state forest in the township of Rawson. Our facilities include:
50mm water main down our driveway (thanks to MMBW heritage) gravity fed, providing very good pressure, from the town supply.
Fire hydrant and hose box, and CFA connection point at Lodge.
Hose reel and roof sprinklers at house.
1000 litre trailer-mounted fire tanker unit, towed by 4WD vehicle.
Interestingly, despite the stringent new 2009 regulations, the Planning Permit for our new spa chalets assessed risk as BAL-LOW because of vegetation/setbacks, and no new fire-fighting facilities were required to meet CFA approval.
In the event of an approaching fire our lines of defence/security are:
Around the property boundaries are bulldozed firebreaks and access tracks maintained by the DSE.
The paintball fields (which are forested) at the far end of the property have minimal undergrowth because of the paintball activity. To protect structures, Phoenix Paintball install sprinklers supplied by water pumped from our dam.
Around our buildings, fuel is minimised by mown lawns, maintained gardens and paddocks grazed by horses and goats.
Because this cleared land forms the main firebreak on the edge of town, it is likely that we would be supported by CFA presence (as occurred on 7 Feb 2009).
Since our buildings and fire fighting equipment are clustered around the main driveway, this is from where our team of volunteers would actively fight any fire.
In the event of a major fire, our team should be well informed with the assistance of our affiliated business, Mountain-Top Experience, who are contracted to provide DSE logistics support (fire-fighter transport), and therefore are present at Incident Control Centre shift change briefings (as occurred in the 2006, 2007 and 2009 fires).
Our team are well trained, most having completed DSE Basic Wildfire Awareness accreditation. Therefore we should be able to judge if, when and how to evacuate.
Should egress via the driveway be blocked, our alternative escape route is by 4WD vehicle across the top (horse) paddocks to the main road.
Rawson township has a 'safer place' emergency assembly area at Bell's Stadium, and the sports ground (across the road from our front gate) can be used for helicopter evacuations. Note that Rawson was not one of the 52 towns recently nominated by the State Government as likely to be at most risk from bushfire threat.
In the event of a major fire, the DSE base at Parkers Corner (less than 1 km from our property) is normally set up as an Incident Control Centre (as occurred in 2007), being well-equipped with all forms of fire-fighting resources. So we are confident that any necessary support should be quickly available.
We trust that the above provides reassurance that the enjoyment of your stay here should not be compromised by concerns about fire safety.
We also advise that our normal cancellation policy would apply unless initiated by ourselves, in which case a full refund would be offered. Remember that the media tends to over-dramatise, and the authorities tend to be over-conservative. So please talk to us first!
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