Chaos called out at river reserve

AN emergency representative is calling on people to act responsibly leading into the upcoming fire season following recent acts of vandalism at one of the region’s reserves.

In an unofficial capacity, Inverleigh CFA Captain Andrew Collins often patrols the town’s river reserve in his downtime and said his recent visits to the site have brought disappointing discoveries.

“There were two young fellas who found a campfire that wasn’t put out properly,” he said.

“Then while I was there we saw a growing tree that council had discovered a few days prior had been cut down, and the people had been trying to burn the green limbs.

“They’d also left broken bottles, cans, food waste, everything in the campfire. That was Saturday afternoon.

“These are people coming from god knows where, and just abusing the Barwon and Leigh rivers. It ruins it for everybody.”

Mr Collins said he’d discovered a similar occurrence the following day with campers from Lara performing burnouts, leaving rubbish in their fire, and cutting branches off native flora.

With winter now over, he said it’s important people are using public reserves respectfully and understand how safeguard against bushfire hazards.

“I’m about educating,” he said. “Some of these people don’t know about the rules and regulations like having campfires dug into the ground and having water available and ready to put it out.

“We’re moving into possibly a dryer fire season this year so if people don’t extinguish their campfires properly, the day after they leave we could end up with campfires reigniting.”

A Golden Plains Shire spokesperson said the municipality has a single employee to respond to events at the reserve.

“Council has an on-call community safety officer to respond to emergency animal events and they attend Inverleigh Reserve during long weekends on an ad-hoc basis,” the spokesperson said.

“As the incidents are ad-hoc and often occur on weekends or public holidays and after hours, council staff are either not available to conduct patrols or not patrolling when damage occurs.

“This is not much of an issue in other reserves in Golden Plains Shire. Most campers in this reserve respect the area and do not cause damage.

“However, a few campers demonstrate inappropriate behaviour and cause damage, rubbish, and disruption in the reserve.”