Practical approach helps protect property

A MEREDITH couple has been praised for their fire preparation efforts ahead of last summer.

Fire devastated the Golden Plains region earlier this year, including Marg and Jeff Cooper’s property along Shelford-Mount Mercer Road.

A grass fire on 9 January burnt more than 2,200ha of their land.

However, preparation by the Coopers about 12 months before meant the fire burnt up to the “green belt” of garden, unable to reach their sheds and home.

Describing himself as “pretty practical”, Jeff Cooper managed area from the northeast around to the southwest of his property.

He installed 35 sprinklers around the garden in a horseshoe pattern and upgraded the pumps from his dam.

The design and work, Cooper said, had come from continuing preparation after previous fires in the past six years.

“That’s why we got a little bit edgy,” the 79-year-old said. “That sort of prompted us to put a bit of a system in, because we’re not getting any younger and you need a safe place.”

He said his family, which included his daughter and son-in-law running livestock on the property, had been on the land for 98 years.

“I’ve pretty much built the whole complex there,” he said. “The house, workshop, pump shed, machinery shed, Marg’s studio.

“I’m at the stage I don’t want to get all my infrastructure burnt out because I won’t have time to rebuild it all.”

Marg said her husband was “a very conscientious chap”.

She said there were sprinklers on the front and back verandahs of the house and on the back of the machinery shed.

“He plans it all in his head and he just carries it out and he keeps going till he does it,” she said.

CFA Commander Mark Collins visited the property and commended the Coopers for the work they had done, while Meredith Fire Brigade Captain Josh Medley said the property was the perfect fallback base for crews to fight the blaze.

“The fire pretty much burned up to where the sprinklers finished and the place was in good nick, they did a great job,” Collins said.

“Knowing Jeff and Marg well, and how they prepare, we knew that their property would be a great base for us to safely tackle that edge of the fire,” Medley said.