Northern Grampians Shire councillors expressed their admiration for the municipality’s residents, firefighters and other emergency workers during the first council meeting of 2025.

Mayor Karen Hyslop moved the council acknowledge all groups involved in supporting the community through bushfires that began in the Grampians National Park in December and continue to blaze.

Cr Hyslop said the scale of the logistical effort required to combat the fires was staggering.

“During the Christmas and New Year period a major firefighting operation took place involving, at times, 25 aircraft including water bombers and spotter planes, over 100 fire trucks, and heavy machinery units dedicated to clearing paths and creating fire breaks,” she said.

“More than 600 personnel were on the ground working tirelessly to contain the blaze over the Christmas and New Year period. They gave up their time to come and support us.

“The council and the community are acutely aware the situation could have been a lot worse without the collaborative efforts and skill and determination of all the agencies involved.

“They’ve been instrumental in minimising the damage, particularly in saving properties including the township of Halls Gap.

“Council also extends its deepest appreciation to the agencies, local government staff members and council staff who have supported the operation of the relief centre and incident control centre.”

Cr Justine Hide, a Grampians Ward councillor, said the past two months had been ‘a challenging time’ for people in her home town of Halls Gap.

“During this time I have been privileged to witness the best in human behaviour,” she said.

“Examples, and there are so many that I can’t name them all, are businesses opening their doors instantly even when the majority of residents had evacuated – they kept their doors open to service all those personnel who were flooding through the doors.

“Many of those businesses were feeding the emergency services off their own bat – lunches and dinners, instantly, without being asked to or paid for.

“Then there were community members who volunteered their time to help neighbours move items or animals, or just be there and clean up and be supportive.

“There are so many individuals and community members acting independently or together that I can’t list them all.”

Cr Jenny Greenberger said she was confident of the council’s ability to respond to crises such as the fires after serving as a member of its Municipal Emergency Management Planning Committee, MEMPC, prior to her election.

“I want to reassure the community that I’ve received a very good insight into the work that council officers do behind the scenes to prepare for emergencies such as this,” she said.

“Quarterly meetings are held that involve all emergency services – police; CFA; Ambulance Victoria; SES; the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing; the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action; and many more all send representatives to those meetings.

“These meetings are instrumental in ensuring that we are exceptionally well prepared to respond to emergencies such as we have seen.

“I believe the general public in our municipality can be very confident that in the event of emergencies, Northern Grampians Shire Council is well prepared and in collaboration with relevant services, both response and recovery efforts are the very best in the state.”

The entire February 12, 2025 edition of The Weekly Advertiser is available online. READ IT HERE!