Melbourne bus driver Richard van Iersel is also a volunteer firefighter with the Emerald CFA
His day job is transporting people all over town. But Richard van Iersel found himself in far more challenging conditions this summer as a volunteer firefighter in East Gippsland.
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He’s familiar face for so many Manningham bus commuters.
But bus driver Richard Van Iersel was recently behind the wheel of a very different vehicle and in much different terrain.
Mr van Iersel was called into action as a volunteer firefighter and deployed to Buchan during the intense bushfires in East Gippsland.
In a matter of days, he went from cruising around Doncaster East and Warrandyte on the 906 bus route to joining strike team 1313 and leading firefighters in a command car on makeshift paths in fire-ravaged bushland.
The strike team worked with Forest Fire Management Victoria to stop a giant fire near Omeo from breaking containment lines and setting alight unburnt land.
“It’s such a paradox between the two jobs,” Mr van Iersel said.
“I was driving my bus on the 906 or whatever, then next thing I’m going down to Lilydale and going into a fire area and everywhere you go there’s roadblocks.
“Then you do that for a week, come back and drive through all that and then it’s back to normality again … it’s just so different.”
Mr van Iersel has been a volunteer firefighter with the Emerald CFA for more than 20 years.
He’s been involved in six different major fire campaigns including the Black Saturday fires in 2009.
But he rated this summer’s conditions as some of the worst he’s seen.
“Black Saturday was pretty bad the devastation this summer was amazing,” Mr van Iersel said.
“The area was all burnt out, the fire from the north was coming down, there was twisted metal on the houses and you couldn’t drive in unless you were an emergency services worker.
“There’s still people there (in Buchan) living in tents with handouts, and that won’t change in five minutes, that will go on for ages.”
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Mr van Iersel said he enjoyed juggling his day job and volunteer firefighter role because of the assistance he’s able to offer the community.
“It’s all part of the same thing, you’re offering your service with both,” he said.
“Everyone goes there (fire zones) with the same frame of mind and you try and fulfil the objective and help people along the way.
“You need to get some personal fulfilment out of it and for me, it works.”