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On Friday 16th September at approximately 1PM, the Brigade was requested to attend a fire in bushland at Springfield Lakes in support of Greenbank RFB who were already on scene. Ripley Valley RFB was able to respond both RV51 and RV52.

The fire had burnt out approximately 3 hectares of scrub by the time crews arrived and was slowly approaching houses at Springfield Lakes as well as the Greenbank Military Range.

Incident Control was handed over to George Ganzenmuller, 1st Officer at Ripley Valley RFB shortly after arrival.

Getting an idea of the fire perimeter and planning was made all the more challenging thanks to wet ground conditions.

Meanwhile, crews from Ripley Valley and Greenbank RFB's worked side by side along the flanks.

Crews got the southern and western flanks under control fairly quickly.

Due to uncertainty about the eastern flank; air support was called in and arrived shortly after to start a recce and then water bombing.

At the fire front; Brain and the crews of RV51 and GN52 started to work with the Helitacks as they water bombed from the western edge to the east along the fire front.

Additional crews from Greenbank RFB (51 & 61) and Chambers Flat RFB arrived allowing crews to have a break. Matt; 2nd Officer at Greenbank RFB was the OIC of GN51 and he took over coordinating ground efforts as a Sector Commander.

The fire was gradually brought under control and crews lived up to their Rural badge going where no fireman has gone before.

The Air Ops Team did a great job and minimised the job size considerably.

A special thanks to Alison Sims from Delfin Lendlease for these Helitack photos.

By 4.30PM, the bulk of the front had been controlled and overhaul commenced.

Area Office staff came along as did the crew of 645M for a short while and assisted with the IMT which made that job a lot easier as well.

At 5.30PM, crews started to be released from the scene and incident control was handed back to Greenbank RFB.

End of a long day; job well done. Everyone did a great job with plenty of hard yakka. Tracey was a good sport giving Brian a shoulder to lean on.

This is how the QT Newspaper reported the incident.

Yes that's our Matty Phillips, aka Hungry, being a star again.

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