Firefighters say it was 'outrageous' for Kim Wells to be at Australian Open at height of fires and call for him to resign

Firefighters have called for the resignation of Victoria’s emergency services minister, Kim Wells, after he went to the Australian Open during the height of last weekend’s bushfire crisis.

Meanwhile, it has been reported that at least five Melbourne fire stations were left unattended for hours as resources were sent to battle blazes in the Grampians and at a St Kilda restaurant.



While fires burned across Victoria, including the largest in the Grampians, on Friday evening, Wells was not at the fire services state control centre but attended the tennis on a general admission ticket he bought for himself.



Wells defended his decision to attend the tennis – and dismissed comparisons to former chief police commissioner Christine Nixon – saying he was in contact with the fire services commissioner, Craig Lapsley, by text message. On Friday however, he conceded that it was a poor decision, because of “the way it looks”.



“Had Craig said 'house lost', 'death' or anything, I would have been over there in a minute,” he told Fairfax Radio.



United Firefighters Union national secretary Peter Marshall accused Wells of “texting like a teenager” while volunteer firefighters battled to save homes. Marshall told Guardian Australia he found Wells’s actions “outrageous”, adding that the minister and firefighters had been briefed about the severity of the fire situation – the worst in the state since the Black Saturday fires – and the potential for loss of life and assets.

“For him to reduce his duties of ensuring firefighters’ safety and the community’s safety … to a system of text messaging so he can go to the tennis is so outrageous. I’m still having trouble coming to terms with it,” said Marshall. He said that an “extraordinary” number of firefighters called him to express their disgust, and Wells should resign.

“These people are the ones that actually put their own lives at risk,” he said. “He should've been Johnny on the spot. I’m not asking him to get involved [in] the fire fight.”



Firefighters have also reported that during that night a number of fire stations in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne were left unattended, as crews were moved up to assist with fires – including the Stokehouse fire at St Kilda – without replacement. The allegations were first raised on Friday morning on Melbourne’s 3AW radio station.



Marshall said usually the policy was for trucks to be moved up to stations if they had been empty for more than half an hour, but that at least two stations – Glen Waverley and Footscray – were unattended for about five hours on Friday night.



In a text message seen by Guardian Australia, a firefighter reports that on the Friday night “we moved up to 24 station for five hours and left 31 unattended for that period of time”. A subsequent text message said it was confirmed with senior command “on that night [fire stations] 31, 47, 2, 39, 32 all unattended as well as three acting commanders”. Those fire stations are in Glen Waverley, Footscray, West Melbourne, Port Melbourne and Caulfield South, respectively.

Entries in the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) log also show that there were empty stations. A line at 12:36am on Saturday morning reads: “FSCC: [Assistant chief fire officer] Mr Dalrymple has been advised no move ups and some stations will have no coverage.”



Marshall said there were nine new trucks available, which had been used to transport firefighters assisting people during the heatwave during the day, but no firefighters were recalled, suggesting there was a reluctance to pay overtime.



Numerous senior firefighters had contacted Marshall about the hole in coverage, he said, adding that such an event was unprecedented in his career.



Deputy chief fire officer of the MFB, David Youssef, told Guardian Australia that there were 16 trucks and five command staff at the Stokehouse fire, leaving more than 60 vehicles available to respond to the rest of Melbourne.



“When a station goes to a fire we will generally move resources around,” said Youssef.



Referring to the claim that Glen Waverley was unattended for about five hours, he said: “ I’m not sure that that’s correct. What I can tell you is that we have a deputy chief officer monitoring … and he balanced the resources over Melbourne to ensure that all areas were covered.” Youssef added that they had the option to call in CFA resources but it was not deemed necessary and a cool change on Friday afternoon prompted the decision to return to normal operations.

“We were busy on Friday night and Saturday morning but at no time was anyone within Melbourne or the community put at risk,” he said.



A spokeswoman for Wells said they were not commenting on the claims at this stage “but we are gathering some background from MFB on that”.

