THOWGLO
Warren McVean is a local Port Phillip businessman (architect) and resident. His family is from Thowgla and he grew up there. Thowglo is a small town of mostly farmers just outside Corroyong in north /east Victoria. Warren was our guest speaker Tuesday 7th June and what an inspiring, but heart wrenching story Warren told about the 2019/20 bushfires that impacted Australia went through the town of Thowgla in country Victoria. They say a picture paints a thousand words, well the picture below certainly tells that.
Warrren spoke passionately about the days of exhausting work with very little equipment and no outside help to stave off a roaring fire that looked like it was going to rip through a million acres of farmland and bushland both in NSW and Victoria. The community galvanised together and through sheer back breaking work and ingenuity, managed to minimize the devastation as best they could.
Warren’s mum and dad lost 400 acres of farming land, their home, $100.000:00 of cattle, kilometres of fencing and equipment. The cost to Warren’s mum and dad’s health is heartbreaking. Of course, this all came at a time when they should be putting their feet up and celebrating a life well led not starting all over again.
Warren saw a desperate need for his community to be better prepared for the next fires and galvanised the local Port Melbourne community to raise funds for the purpose of building a fire station and purchasing a fire truck. A fundraiser event was held at a local Port Phillip hotel with local residents and business people contributing. Result - Station built and truck purchased.
Local Port Phillip tradespeople built (without charge) the station on the back of donations for materials raised at the fundraiser. They are hoping of a donation of $5K - $10K to purchase some specific equipment to go with the truck and station. Resilient families of the Thowgla Valley are rallying to create a safer future with the use of quick fill pumps, stand pipes and equipment, which safely and quickly allows refilling slip-ons and tanks with water before getting straight back to fight the fires and protect our community.
The January 2022 update was fantastic news on the project, as they were able to purchase a 1998 ‘Hino’ Fire truck in December. It was an ex-RFS (NSW) authority truck, from the Wagga region and had been used as a ‘reserve’ truck for 20 years. As a result it only had about 35,000kms on the clock,
Thank you to Warren and his family and friends for coming to the club and giving us an insight into the challenges faced.
