Kilmore Fire Recovery Project
After the fires that swept through the Kilmore area in February 2014 the UGLN offered the South West Goulburn Landcare Network the assistance of UGLN Landcare Coordinator Chris Cobern to coordinate a fire recovery fencing project in the area.
Chris immediately contacted many of the volunteers that assisted UGLN with their very successful ‘Fencers Without Boundaries’ fire recovery project after the 2009 fires and many were keen and willing to assist again.
NAB volunteers
With funding provided by the GBCMA we set to work removing burnt and damaged fences and rebuilding new fences that were destroyed by the fires.
NAB volunteers removing fencing
Over the next 10 months we had 337 volunteers help with the project from a variety of different corporate and community groups including Telstra, Flowerdale Men’s Shed, Victorian Mobile Landcare Group, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Earnst & Young, ANZ, NAB, Franklin Scholar TAFE College, 4WDrivers and several individuals.
Steve Joblin and members of the Flowerdale Men’s Shed
We removed 4.4km of burnt fencing and rebuilt 13.2km of new fences with much of this new fencing to assist the ecologically important riparian land along Kurkuruc and Prices Creeks to recover from the impacts of fire and grazing pressures.
This project wouldn’t have been as successful without the assistance of Steve Joblin who provided the fencing expertise for Chris and the volunteers and the 4wdrivers Geoff, Marg, Sparky and Fred for the fantastic work they have done over many weekends.
We also would like to thank the Kilmore and Broadford Scout Groups for the free Scout hall accommodation they have provided for our volunteers.
Fencing volunteer, Marg
Also to local fencing contractors Tom Ryan and Brian Baschin for driving the posts and Mustad Lowdens and Rodwells Kilmore for the discounted fence material prices.
