General News
16 January, 2025
January 17 - 60th anniversary of our region's deadly fire
TEMPERATURES rapidly soared into the 40s and strong winds swirled on what has been described as the Loddon’s darkest fire day 60 years ago tomorrow. Two lives were lost in the Kingower fire that stretched from Inglewood to Rheola, among them...
TEMPERATURES rapidly soared into the 40s and strong winds swirled on what has been described as the Loddon’s darkest fire day 60 years ago tomorrow.
Two lives were lost in the Kingower fire that stretched from Inglewood to Rheola, among them volunteer fireman Alan McKean
Four other firemen were injured when the flames came over a hill near Arnold.
One was Kevin Poyser who had rushed from his job at the Bridgewater flour mill to jump on the brigade’s truck as sirens summonsed firefighters to action soon after lunch.
“I can’t remember a day as bad with the heat and an immense wind from early in the morning,” Kevin recalled this week. “The siren was still going when we left the station on an Austin tanker - Don Jenkins was the driver, Charlie Lumber, Jack Jenkins and myself were on the back.”
Kevin said: “We weren’t there long ... in a paddock that had not been stripped at Arnold West, the truck became immobile when a wall of fire came over the top of us.
“Don, who was a mechanic, tried to get the truck moving ... it just wouldn’t move.
“Within minutes, it might have been seconds. It all happened so quickly ... the truck tyres were well alight.
“We then walked, side by side, probably half a kilometre to a farmhouse where there were people, the four of us were put in the back of a ute and taken to Inglewood hospital.
“It was a horrific drive and painful, especially with the wind.”
For Jack and Kevin, it would be the start of six months of care at Bendigo and Melbourne’s Preston and Northcote Community Hospital for skin grafts and later plastic surgery as they recovered from burns in the fire.
Kevin said it was only last year that he returned to that Arnold West paddock where the Bridgewater tanker crew was injured on January 17, 1965.
“It was a shocking day and a savage fire.”
Reports in the Wedderburn Express described the blaze as the largest to ever hit the Korong Shire on that Sunday afternoon when the “shade temperature” was 42 degrees.
Alan McKean, 30, a member of the Inglewood brigade, became separated from his crew on the Sunday evening. Volunteers found his body the next evening. An appeal was quickly started to support his widow and three children.
Valentino Mancini, 70, was the second fatality in the fire at Arnold West.
On a “mongrel of a day,” as Kevin Poyser recalls, more than nine homes were consumed by flames as fire brigades from across the region, Korong Shire water tankers, Forestry Commission and dozens of private units took on the fire front.
The Wedderburn Express estimated more than 2000 people were part of the firefighting effort while women of the district provided refreshments.
It took more than 24 hours to contain the fire that at one stage stretched from Murphys Creek to near Inglewood.
Damage was not limited to homes and fences. The bridge at Arnold West was destroyed with Kevin saying the mercy dash to Inglewood hospital for the injured Bridgewater fireman took the long route around Kingower. The damage bill was estimated at $1 million, more than $10 million in today’s money.
The Wedderburn Express wrote: “It is a tragedy which we can all hope will never be repeated.”
Kevin Poyser, who recovered from severe burns when flames engulfed the Bridgewater brigade truck, said it remains a day etched in memory and one he also hopes is not repeated.
- CHRIS EARL