CFA gave 'mixed messages' at Boolarra

Residents of the Victorian town of Boolarra were told they still had time to prepare
their homes for an approaching bushfire, 45 minutes before the town was engulfed.

Country Fire Authority (CFA) officer Lou Sigmund broke down several times on
Wednesday as he told the royal commission into the Victorian bushfires about a
series of frustrating events in his hometown of Boolarra, the week before the Black
Saturday firestorm.
Mr Sigmund broke ranks with the CFA on January 30 when he ordered the town's fire
station siren be sounded to alert the small East Gippsland township to evacuate as
the fire was imminent.
Footage of a community meeting in Boolarra was shown to the royal commission. In it,
an unnamed CFA member tells about 120 residents the fire was moving slowly and there
was still time to prepare their homes to fend off the blaze.
But Mr Sigmund, the CFA's Morwell group officer, told the meeting in impassioned
tones that every resident was under threat.
"We are in deep shit", he told the meeting.
"We've been fighting the fire for two days. We lost it yesterday. It's on it's way
back."
Some people could be heard saying their cars were packed ready to go and asked when
they would be told to leave.
Not long after, Mr Sigmund told the meeting the local brigade had made a decision to
sound the CFA station siren.
He told the commission he made the comment after the Boolarra brigade captain
whispered the idea in his ear.
"I thought it was a bloody good idea," he told the commission.
Mr Sigmund told the commission the meeting finished about 12.30 or 12.45pm.
Despite being told the fire was moving slowly, by 1.30pm the town was engulfed and
the siren was sounded.
People left the town on the outskirts of Churchill in an orderly convoy.
Asked what the CFA policy was on setting the siren, Mr Sigmund replied: "There isn't
one".
He said since 2004 the siren has been used to call firefighters to the station.
"I believe that using the siren was a very good option, better than nothing," he
told the commission, but added he was later berated for using it.
No lives were lost in the Boolarra fire, although 30 homes were destroyed.
Earlier, the commission heard it was not the role of local CFA brigades to assess
the fire risk of individual properties or endorse personal fire strategies.
Kinglake CFA captain Paul Hendrie said he had never told residents their homes were
defensible.
"I'm not qualified," he told the commission.
His comments came one day after Warrnambool resident Joan Davey claimed the Bald
Spur Road CFA fireguard group encouraged her son's family to stay and defend their
Kinglake house.
The family - Robert Davey, 36, his 33-year-old wife Natasha and their two daughters,
Jorja, three and Alexis, eight months - perished in their home on Bald Spur Road
during the devastating bushfires of February 7 which killed 173 people.
When counsel for the Victorian government Neil Clelland, SC, asked Mr Hendrie
whether he believed prior to February 7 that Bald Spur Road could be defended, Mr
Hendrie answered: "Yes".
Asked whether his opinion had now changed, Mr Hendrie replied: "It certainly has".