NEWSLETTER UPDATE #3 7th May 2018
 
THE AREA / THE FIRES  ‘No Lives were Lost’
The central district of District 9780 has been severley affected by 4 fires.
4 Fires are known as Hawesdale/Gazette, Garvoc, Terang/Cobden & Camperdown.
3 Peat fires still remain adjacent to Cobden. They are controlled with water being piped to the area, with the other firefighting assets have now been removed.
There have been the loss of up to 26 homes, 40,000 hectares of feed, equipment shedding, dairies, 4000km of fencing and wind shelter.
 
THE ASSISTANCE
Local assistance has been magnificent. Financial response has been fantastic with support ranging from Western Australia to NSW and everwhere in between. Material support has been from 41 truck loads of feed from Warracknabeal to Western Emergency Relief Network from D 9800.
 
THE CHALLENGES IMMEDIATE
Blaze Aid has set up camps at Cobden, Terang and MacArthur with volunteer efforts, materials of post and wire being purchased locally.
Internal boundary fences with burnt trees are not attracting funding support, but must be removed before the fencing recontruction can take place. This is an enormous cost and investigations are taking place with governments.
Feed management and reestablishment of pastures is a urgency.
 
THE CHALLENGES MID / LONGER TERM
Housing needs to be replaced, as well as shedding and equipment
Farm viability and farmer/family health are perceived a substantial pending challenges.
 
A Community Group has former to assist with donor distributions. The South West Victoria Fire Community Relief Fund Committee, has broad Local Government, Health, Industry and Community Bank. We have joined this committee to assist with the process of identifying needs. We will pool $60,000 of Rotary’s donations into the consolidate community fund. Bendigo Bank network have contributed approx $75000 to this account.
 
Thankyou to the many individuals and clubs, both locally and out of District 9780 for your generous support.
 
We have an account assigned for receipt of donations.
Account:         Rotary International District 9780 – bushfire appeal
BSB                 035070
Account          179149
Reference        Name & email details to secretary
 
Contacts
Graeme Fischer Assistant Governor Group 6 Clubs  graeme.fischer@bigpond.com 0439 135 766
Ray Herbert District Governor District 9780 herbert.r@telstra.com  0407 785 633
Barry Clark District Secretary Barry.Clark@rotary.org