3rd February, 2025
Email To: Jason.Heffernan@cfa.vic.gov.au
Dear Mr Heffernan
I'm a non-operational member in District 16, which you are probably aware is in the Western area of Victoria.
You'd also be aware that as of today, at the time of writing this email (approximately 1:30pm) there are:
20 Warnings, including an Emergency Warning
and
260 incidents
You'd also be aware of the overwhelming number of call outs last night, 2nd February, due to a series of extreme and very dangerous thunderstorms that moved through sections of this half of the State. After a day of extremely high temperatures, and break outs of the two major fire complexes in the region (Gariwerd / Grampians and the Little Desert).
So I refer you to this article:
Posted by the ABC in the leadup to this past weekend, where it was known that things were going to become extremely dangerous, and fraught.
I particularly refer you to this quote:
Country Fire Authority (CFA) chief officer Jason Heffernan said authorities were keeping a close eye on areas where dry lightning strikes had occurred.
"In particular focusing on Gippsland, the Latrobe Valley, and also the north-eastern parts of the state where we know we've had dry lightning events," he said.
"It's not uncommon for more fires to pop up as the weather starts to turn back to being hot and windy."
Whilst I'd definitely not be surprised to find that the ABC have chosen to take such a quote out of context, or cut your comments short, I cannot tell you the disappointment that this sort of dismissal of the real life situation in the West of Victoria evokes.
The major complex fires in the West of the state were all caused by dry lightning strikes. The dry lightning warnings were as valid for the much larger area to the West of the State as they were for the East.
Granted it is not unknown, for Melbourne based media and organisations to be mostly blind to the existence, and/or the plight of the West, but for the Chief Officer of the agency on whom the responsibility for trying to hold back the flames threatening communities and livelihoods all over the West falls, to have blatantly declared that the West didn't deserve focus seems utterly unacceptable.
Luckily the volunteers did not concur and they worked like trojans (as at 31st January Stawell Group alone have been called out on 16 Strike Teams since the 16th December).
Karen Chisholm
(address / contact details provided in the email)
UPDATE as at 10th February.
Mr Heffernan kindly replied to my email, acknowledging his recent visit to the area, and clarifying that the ABC had indeed taken his comment out of a longer interview that did, indeed discuss the whole of the State. (His full comments are in the video attached to the above, which was clipped by the ABC to, as usual, concentrate on the East).
This, to be honest, comes as little surprise. The ABC's coverage of anything in Western Victoria is woeful. They have form over and over again in completely ignoring anything that occurs here, always prioritising Gippsland and the East. Even to the point where I've noted many times their utter failure to report on major incidents occurring between Melbourne's western suburbs and Ballarat. This failure has been ongoing, and frankly, is a large part of the reason why calling themselves "the emergency broadcaster" is regarded as an utter joke in these parts. They, needless to say, in this event, strike again.
Having said that - this bias is well known and I'd like to see authorities calling them out more often. Goodness knows complaining to them directly as a now mostly non-viewer of their services, achieves nothing. They never respond, and if this is anything to go by, have made zero attempt to correct their obvious disinterest in a large part of their potential viewing audience. Needless to say we don't listen / watch or tune into anything much at all on the ABC anymore.
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