VOLUNTEERS from the Lake Tabourie Rural Fire Service Brigade are always on hand to give residents advice on how to prepare for the bushfire season.
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The brigade will not be taking part in the upcoming "bushfire preparation weekend" but remains committed to making sure residents are prepared for the fire season.
Residents can always drop into the station and talk to the likes of unit leader, captain Dianne Heggie.
Her simple and easy bushfire preparation advice is to clean your gutters, mow your lawn, get rid of rubbish around your properties and have bushfire plans.
"I think the locals are getting these messages in their heads - there is a lot more awareness," she said.
If there were to be another crisis - she hopes more residents would leave villages like Lake Tabourie and leave early.
Captain Di said 184 people stayed in the village during the crisis.
She thinks most of those residents who stayed would now opt to leave.
However, Captain Di said some residents would always want to take the option of staying and defending their properties.
Lake Tabourie, like many other RFS units, got some new volunteers after last season's firestorm.
The unit's ranks have been boosted by five new recruits.
"They are all very keen," Captain Di said.
Captain Di said more volunteers means they can share the workload and means they can send out two trucks to call-outs if required.
She is happy with the membership of around 30 volunteers she has on the books.
During the peak of the Currowan Fire crisis, Lake Tabourie's then 22 active RFS volunteers toiled hard for many days and weeks.
Captain Di said the volunteers had recovered from the heavy workload, but added it was COVID-19 lockdown that hit the volunteers harder than Currowan Fire bushfire fatigue factor.
She said the volunteers saw each pretty much every day from November to February and then came lockdown, meaning they virtually no contact with each other.
"We really got to know each other well and had become like one big family," she said.
The volunteers missed seeing and talking to each other.
She said now they were back seeing each other more regularly the volunteers were much happier.
Captain Di does not think we will experience the same bushfire season like the last one.
"I have been here 30 years and had never seen anything like that," she said.
"In fact, I had never seen a fire like that here or anywhere else."
She said the region will face bushfires in the future but hopefully not on the same Black Summer magnitude.
"I was really surprised when they called out my name," she said.
Captain Di is now in running to win the state award.
She said her award was good news for her brigade and the Lake Tabourie community in general.
