February 22, 2009

He survived Victoria's bush-fire disaster and now a Kiwi dad wants fire education to be on the checklist of everyone who wants to move to rural Australia.
Former Central Hawke's Bay man Luke van den Berk led his family to safety during Victoria's Kinglake district bush fires two weeks ago and now he's 'stirring up a big issue' with his local councils and politicians.
Luke had completed a firefighting course before this month's bush fires broke out and now he wants other people living in fire-prone areas to do the same.
'If you want to live in the bush you should have to complete a day-long course on firefighting, or a course where you can learn about wild fire, what it is and what it does.
'That's what's saved me, knowledge of wild fire: We didn't try to jump in our car and outrun the fire, we let it pass over us,' he said.
Luke felt an awareness campaign should be pushed while the bush fire was still vivid in everyone's minds.
The government there had been talking about a bush-fire warning system, but a lot of people were concerned about a perceived lack of interest from local councils, who wanted nature strips to stay when removing them would help reduce the fire danger. Luke said council bylaws preventing trees from being removed around houses increased the risk to homes during bushfire season.
'They have a lot of caveats on trees. Landcare groups get their noises out of joint and cause problems for local people who are trying to clean up their property to make it safe.'
The bush fire had taken much from the rural community but in another way had brought people closer together.
Most people in Luke's community met at their local Country Fire Authority's (CFA) headquarters each night, where they were fed and shared stories about the fire.
'We are all coming to support each other. We have dinner at the CFA every night, where we find out who has died and who is alive, who has lost their home, and just swapping stories,' he said.
The CFA was open 24 hours a day and had figured highly as a refuge for the fire victims.
'It doesn't sound like much, but it has been so good for someone else to cook a meal for you,' Luke said.
'The catering companies are competing with who is going to provide the meals, which is great,' he said.
Other acts of generosity had prevailed in the aftermath of the fire, including those by electricians, plumbers and powerlines people who had volunteered their time to help restore normality to the Kinglake district.
Tradespeople had also come to offer help for Luke and his three teenage children to rebuild their home. They had been staying at Luke's girlfriend's one-bedroom apartment since the fire hit.
Luke is caretaker of a 33-hectare property owned by the Church of Macedonian and their home there was a casualty of the fire.
The church told Luke it would rebuild the house, but until then his family would today move into a nearby hall on the church property that had been untouched by the fire.
'We went up there to lay new drains down, waiting for the water tanks to replenish our supply,' Luke said.
'The next thing, 12 plumbers turned up to install a brand new plumbing system and the electricians came at the same time to hook up a generator, it's nearly ready to go,' he said.
Luke's sister, Mary, was due to arrive today from Sydney to deliver two truckloads of furniture for the family and there would probably be enough for others lacking homeware.
'This type of thing is happening everywhere, they are all volunteers, same goes for the emergency services, it's just fantastic.'
He was also humbled to hear news of financial help on the way from Hawke's Bay. Hastings District Council donated $10,000 to the fire relief in Victoria while the Hastings Host Lions Club gave $5000 to the Victoria Lions.
Luke's brother, Leo, from Napier, has also been co-ordinating efforts in Hawke's Bay for donations to go towards the family in Victoria, along with sisters Camilla Wilkins, from Napier and Angie Walsh, from Hastings.
Angie works at Higgins Contractors Hawke's Bay at Awatoto and the workers union there has made a donation, via the Red Cross, for those caught by the fire.
News of the fire and Luke's escape from it propelled the family into action as they were still dealing with the loss of another brother, Gerard, who died of cancer last year.
Angie said Luke and Gerard were close friends. Luke had been upset because he had many of Gerard's possessions in his house which was destroyed by the fire.
Relief funding was also on the way, through Victoria's Department of Human Services, to assist those who had suffered 'total loss', Luke said.
The support went a long way to upping the spirits of those trying to rebuild their community northeast of Melbourne, but it was not all going to be easy.
'Politicians have tried to tell us what to do. We want to rebuild our community, but they want us to live somewhere else, where are we supposed to go _ we don't have anywhere else to live.
'This has brought us together, we know what we want to do and we're keen to get on and rebuild.'
Luke said the biggest worry for him at the moment was the welfare of his children and the community.
'We need to get our children back to normality. They're not back at school yet, our local school was the only one out of three that is still standing and it'll be taking others now. We hope to have that operating by Monday.'