Liam McMahon, Sergeant: December 30, we had a fire that was started by lightning over in New South Wales, it has jumped the border roughly around Mt Alfred, which is not far from Walwa.
Simon McKenzie, Leading Senior Constable: We were actually sitting down on the river watching the fire coming towards us, the next thing it had spotted over the top of us, and the flames just took off.
I’d been out all day evacuating people, telling them it was coming. When it all happened, I ended up in Cudgewa.
Paul Hargreaves, Inspector: So I happened to drive into Cudgewa as it was coming over the hill, and it started to spot, there was a fair bit of concern from local community and the message to get them out.
We didn’t have a great deal of time to do it, as you would well and truly appreciate.
And by this time, there was fires on both sides of us, it had come over the bluff, it was coming down the hill and Liam McMahon and Simon McKenzie came in, which was really handy.
Between the three of us, we started to hopscotch up the road telling people that it was time to get out.
Chris, local resident: About 11.30 I think it was quarter to 12, there was this police car flying in, and me wife’s gone out and met him, and he’s just turned around and said “get out, get out now, you’ve got to get out.”
Kay, local resident: Best decision we made was to get out.
Chris: And Liam coming in when he came in and said get out, we got out.
Ross, local resident: It just came across so quick, and so loud you know, it was like a freight train.
By that time it would have been around midnight, 12.30. Liam dropped in, the police officer, and he said to us “get out now, it is not safe to stay here.” So we jumped in one car and headed to Tallangatta.
Liam McMahon: The fire was right on their doorstep, and it was a beast. It was hitting the area and you just don’t know where it’s going to go. You’d look at one house and its standing, and the next house is burnt to the ground.
The whole thing is to keep the people safe, and that’s the number one.
Jan, local resident: It was the best thing that we did go because we’ve got our life, we didn’t know what was going to happen.
Chris: And on the same token, we didn’t know how long after we left that the power would have went out, we wouldn’t have had any water at all.
Jan: No, we wouldn’t have had any water, because once the power goes out, we can’t pump any water.
Liam McMahon: The community does expect you to step up, and that’s pretty much what we had to.
The emergency management role that I play in Victoria Police, and I think linking in with all your stakeholders, it all comes together in times like this. And hopefully we have got it right this time.
I think we have, I think we’ve done our job, we didn’t lose anyone and that was probably the one thing that I’m grateful about, is that we didn’t lose anyone in the community, and I was, you know, really worried that we would lose someone out of this fire.
Kay: Hats off to all of them. They did a wonderful job, yup. Can’t thank all of them enough. They’ve been amazing.
Simon McKenzie: It’s brought out the best in a lot of people, and I’m just lucky to be in a community where the locals were fantastic to deal with, and I don’t think we could have had a better scenario.
Paul Hargreaves: It’ll be something that I’ll remember for a long time. And with a little bit of pride knowing that, you know, we did our bit. When you look at Liam and Simon, who were there with me, a fantastic job to try and help the community and get them out. And the community is probably better off for what we did do on that night.
And whilst the community is a bit burnt, people are alive, people are well, and they are starting to try and return to what is normal. Or the new normal.
And the great thing for us all is that, we’re keeping people safe.
Updated