VK3 bushfires - WICEN wrap-up
18 February 2009

WICEN (Victoria) the State Disaster Plan Emergency Communications Organisation was put on standby alert as Saturday 7 February shaped-up to be the worst day since the Ash Wednesday Bushfire Disaster of 1983.

WICEN was activated on 9 February, two days into the Black Saturday bushfire disaster with an initial request for operators in Kinglake north-east of Melbourne and one of the worst hit areas that had no communications or power, plus nearby Alexandra.

The role of the four operators was to provide links on a 24 hour basis between Kinglake and the Alexandra municipal emergency coordination centre for the Murrindindi Shire Council.

The operators for Alexandra had to reach their assignment via Seymour, the long route due to road closures. Those with duty at Kinglake needed to be escorted through hazardous road conditions from the CFA staging area at the Whittlesea Showgrounds.

WICEN also assisted in the restoration of the local municipal two-way radio service in the Kinglake area.

Three WICEN operators were given eight hour shifts at the Alexandra Incident Control Centre operating Country Fire Authority and the forest/parkland fire agency Department of Sustainability and Environment radios. .

Amateur radio links were made with another affected town, Narbethong with two operators maintaining them.

The next element of the WICEN deployment was at McAdam’s Hill about 8km from Woods Point, where two operators provided health and welfare communications for a team of DSE firefighters at their base camp.

A WICEN portable repeater is in service. Two skeds, 1000 and 2130 hours, are held daily on 3.6MHz. Those nets help to keep people up to date and share information. It also enables a check on the welfare of WICEN operators in the field.

WICEN has expressed appreciation to the amateur radio community for keeping that frequency clear for its nets.

For more detail check out the news section of the Amateur Radio Victoria website www.amateurradio.com.au