FOOD FOR THE FIRES DRIVE – GIPPSLAND 2020
A call was put out to 4wd clubs in Victoria seeking people who would volunteer their time to distribute
over the weekend of 18 th of January to far reaching fire affected communities in Victoria
Three members of the Pajero 4wd club, Victoria, plus another 30 odd members of other Victorian
clubs volunteered and were accepted into the relief programme not knowing what to expect.
8am Saturday morning a convoy of approximately 24 cars left Melbourne arriving at a warehouse in
Bairnsdale run by the army and charity groups at 12pm after dropping our camping gear at the Sale
caravan park.
At the Bairnsdale warehouse our instructions were to load our vehicles with as much water, food, pet
food, milk and sanitary goods as possible, then await further instructions at a sporting oval out of town
heading towards Buchan.
At the sporting oval the convoys were split into smaller groups of 5 vehicles. The Trip Leader of each
group was a senior member of the Victoria Police who was accompanied by a Paramedic. Equipment
such as defibrillators, chainsaws, sat phones, GPS etc were carried in each of the Trip Leaders vehicle.
The organiser of this event then gave a short outline of what we could expect in the next few hours of
the Saturday and the Sunday heading into remote areas of East Gippsland that had only seen
emergency services since Christmas.
The individual convoys then departed the sporting oval with only the Trip Leaders knowing the
directions.
All vehicles had identification labels placed on the rear of our vehicles. The convoy I was a part of
headed to Buchan and beyond passing through Police road blocks, travelling along empty roads to get
to people who needed help. They did not know we were coming.