Works slashed: The major threat this shire faces

Moorabool Shire has told The Courier unsealed roads under its jurisdiction will not be maintained unless they are a traffic hazard.

In response to questions about long grass and tree growth on the Yendon-Lal Lal road, the shire's CEO Derek Madden said while the shire has an extensive slashing program for sealed roads, as part of its documented service levels, unsealed roads cannot be slashed.

"Due to costs and staff associated with the slashing program, unsealed roads are not part of the program, unless vegetation growth encroaches upon safe line of sight distances at intersections," Mr Madden said in a statement.

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The news is cold comfort for shire resident Margot Rees, who has been vocal about fire danger for many years.

Ms Rees was working at Scotsburn as a property manager in 2015 when fires swept through there destroying property. She says she told the owner of the property it needed clearing just two weeks prior.

"They were having a wedding reception on the day of the fire. The bride was walking down the aisle to meet the the groom when they all had to be evacuated," Ms Rees says.

And last year at this time a lightning strike set fire to a tree on the Yendon - Lal Lal Road which required eight crews to bring under control.

"The lightning blew up the tree like a bomb," Ms Rees says.

"It was lucky the wind just stopped, and the firies were on it, it could have been a catastrophe."

One of Ms Rees' earliest childhood memories is of a brick clinker home on fire, the red engines of the fire brigade parked in the street. She admits her fear of fire is deep-seated.

It's one of, but not the only, reason why Ms Rees is so vocal about fire and being prepared for it in Australia.

She also lost her Cockatoo home in the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires, fires in which people she knew died. She saw her nephew and his five children trapped in the Black Saturday fires at Kinglake. Six years ago a fire started in her own back paddock at Yendon; She was holidaying in Marysville when she realised the potential of that town to be susceptible to fire.

Marysville was extensively destroyed in 2009.

Ms Rees, who trained as a firefighter, also has a very personal reason for wanting fire safety to be foremost. While she won't share the details publicly, she says the close experience of seeing someone she loves badly burned, the damage done internally as well as to the skin, is harrowing.

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"To have the education about how burns affect someone that I've had, how someone can be cooked inside as well as having their skin disfigured... no one should have that," Ms Rees says.

Now, Ms Rees says she's struggling to get her local council, Moorabool Shire, and V/Line to listen to her concerns about fuel build-up on road sides and railway culverts.

"Where I am, it hasn't been cleaned up in 30 years," Ms Rees alleges. "The shire did clean up a few trees a while back, but you'd struggle to see where they did that now. There is no safe passage from Navigators to Lal Lal, that's the honest truth. Coming back from town and looking at it along the roadsides, some of the grass is taller than I am. I've hounded Moorabool Shire about it.

"The trees arch over the roads and make tunnels. When a branch falls on the road the locals will clear it, but the small broken branches and leaves are chucked into the railway line bush. You know, all the fires we've had, all the royal commissions - what they say every time is the necessary thing to cause fire is fuel.

"Well this year there's long grass and piles upon piles of gorse and sticks. Gorse, when it is dry, burns like the wick of candle."

In a statement, V/Line said vegetation management in Yendon was completed in late November in the area directly adjacent to the rail line, about 300 metres either side of Yendon-Egerton Road.

"A second round will take place, if required, between February and April.

"Parts of the rail reserve do not extend all the way to the roadside in this area and V/Line was not able to complete vegetation management in these areas.

"We also spray herbicides up to five metres from the track to manage growth in the rail corridor."

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