With the holiday season upon us, many will look forward to taking time off work and winding down while enjoying a well-deserved break.

For emergency services personnel, they will be winding up and preparing for what’s expected to be a potentially precarious fire season.

East Gippsland is considered particularly hazardous given its drought declaration and the fact the fire danger period started earlier than usual, on September 10, because of extremely dry conditions.

The fire danger period will remain in force until May 1, 2019.

Authorities have been at pains to impress upon holidaymakers arriving from the city and interstate that they need to be fire conscious.

If they have a camp fire, they must comply with the relevant restrictions, one of which is to never leave a fire unattended and making sure a fire is put out properly, with water, when you are no longer in its line of sight.

Senior Sergeant Wayne Rothwell oversees a large area of Far East Gippsland to the New South Wales border, an area considered exceptionally dry.

“While the environment looks green after recent rains, there are still underlying dry conditions,” he said.

Mindful of the holiday crowds flocking to the East Gippsland coastal towns and other bushland areas over summer, Sgt Rothwell is quick to remind the public that reckless behavior such as leaving camp fires unattended is an offence and the consequences of doing so could be catastrophic.

“You have to be in control of a fire to have a fire and being intoxicated means you’re not in control,” he said.

Victoria Police act as the emergency response coordinator and Sgt Rothwell’s role is to make sure that the correct agency is identified and in charge of an incident in Far East Gippsland.

“If there’s a fire, our role is to support those agencies through the logistics and evacuations if required,” he said.

Sgt Rothwell says those visiting areas which are isolated or have only one road in should have a plan and think about how they’re going to get out safely if there is a fire.

“It’s about being responsible, we just want everyone to be safe.”

CFA District 11 extends from Providence Ponds to Mallacoota, encompassing Cape Conran, Marlo, Bemm River, Benambra and Omeo and extending south to the Mitchell River National Park.

The Gippsland Lakes and seaside communities of Paynesville, Metung, Lakes Entrance and Lake Tyers also fall under its jurisdiction.

Ten percent of Victoria’s land mass is located in District 11 and much of it is inaccessible.

The CFA looks after private land, which is 20 percent of the district, while the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) is responsible for public areas which make up the remaining 80 per cent.

Aaron Worcester is a CFA operations officer for District 11.

He says that the fire risk this summer in Far East Gippsland will be serious.

“The risk is everywhere, but certainly once you start getting further east of Orbost, it’s exceptionally dry,” Mr Worcester said.

While recent rainfalls have been welcome, they’ve done little to penetrate the dry soils, which often provide a base for the fires to spread.

“While some areas received 80 millimeters, others were lucky to receive 20mm.”

He agrees with Sgt Rothwell’s assessment that the appearance of green grass falsely implies the environment isn’t a fire risk.

“It is deceptive because while that little bit of rain has made the grass go green, it’s had little impact on bush areas and the grass will dry out very quickly on the first few warmer days,” Mr Worcester said.

“A couple of days in the 30s and the green grass will brown off again.”

He says areas like Mallacoota, Cape Conran, Bemm River and Marlo will be closely monitored over the next few months.

Mr Worcester says the far east, especially Club Terrace, is prone to lightning strikes and weather conditions are regularly scrutinised so firefighters can be prepared.

“After storm and lightning activity, we will follow up with reconnaissance to see if it’s started any fires so we can get to them very quickly,” he said.

Routine aircraft flights are conducted over the whole area, with the focus on signs of smoke in forestedareas.

The CFA has firefighting aircraft in the form of fixed wing bombers based in Bairnsdale and Benambra that are ready to go in the advent of fire.

Access to additional aircraft is available from Heyfield, the Latrobe Valley and Avalon.

New South Wales also provides additional firefighting support and aircraft if the fire is located in bush land closer to the borderline.

Volunteer CFA members are located in virtually every township and are trained and ready for the fire season.

The CFA works in conjunction with DELWP’s Forest Fire Management team.

Craig Chapman is the District Manager for the Snowy Forest and Fire Operations Division for DELWP, which looks after public and crown land, roughly 80 per cent of the district.

He says Gippsland has employed an additional 20 seasonal project fire fighters this season due to the dryness in the landscape, bringing the total contingent to 194 personnel.

Not surprisingly, his assessment of East Gippsland’s environment concurs with the CFA and Victoria Police.

“The rain has been patchy across our landscape, we didn’t have a lot of rain in spring and our annual rainfall has been low for the past three years,” Mr Chapman said.

“It’s a compounding problem. Each year we start further behind in terms of soil dryness and soil dryness affects fuel dryness.

“The moisture in the soil affects fuels, like leaves and twigs, on the forest floor.

“Even though we’ve had rain over the past couple of weeks, it’s been patchy and not a good soaking, and a fair bit of the district has some pretty dry soils.

“The entire district has the potential to have major fires this summer.”

He cites Bairnsdale, Dargo, up to Omeo and across to Mallacoota as particularly vulnerable.

“That basic triangle, there’s a high potential for fires this summer to be quite large because of dryness,” he said.

“All we need is a few days of hot weather in a row, windy conditions and an ignition source.”

East Gippsland has already endured fires this year, much earlier than expected, one of which was in winter.

The Cape Conran-Cabbage Tree fire on Conran Road ignited on August 11 and burned a total of 815 hectares of public and private land before being brought under control several days later.

In mid-September, a fire at Bonang burned a total of 430 hectres of public and private land in subzero temperatures while it snowed on the peaks above it.

An indication of just how dry the bush really is.

Mr Chapman says the authorities rely heavily on the public to report fires so they can be attended to as quickly as possible.

If you see fire or smoke, dial 000 immediately to report the fire taking note of the location it’s in.

PICTURED: Snowy district duty officer, Brad Young, Senior Sergeant Wayne Rothwell, who has command over Far East Gippsland and field staff coordinator for Fire Forest Management, Chris Odd, pore over a map while determining the exact location of a small fire in thick bushland.