Melbourne, Thursday 2 February 1939

[Mr. Gowans] You live on the Blacks Spur near Narbethong?
Yes. I am Assistant to the Forest Officer stationed at Taggerty. I am stationed at Narbethong. I have had three years school experience.

What qualifications must you have to become an Assistant Forest Officer?
It is a period of service and experience.

Do you mind telling us what experience you had before you became an Assistant Forest Officer?
I had three years training at the Forestry School, Creswick. I had been stationed at Bendigo for a short period, and I had been under Mr. McRae and Mr. Kitchener at Yarrum for two years. I have been up in the Taggerty and Narbethong districts for approximately sixteen months.

Where did you come from originally?
I am a city boy.

Do you know the mills around here?
I do.

Of those [mills] which were burnt out, how many did not have dug-outs? Did Anderson and Rowe No. 1 mill have a dug-out?
I cannot say definitely.

Did Padgett's?
He had none that I know of.

We know that Feiglin's No. 1 and No. 2 had dug-outs?
Yes.

Do you know if Anderson and Rowe no. 2, the mill which survived, has a dug-out?
I do not think it has.

Has Menz's mill?
Not that I know of.

Are you prepared to express an opinion as to whether Anderson and Rowe No. 2 mill and Menz's mill require dug-outs?
Yes. In my opinion, they definitely need dug-outs.

[The Commissioner] What age are you?
Twenty-three years.

I am not suggesting that that makes your evidence any the less valuable.

[Mr. Gowans] Do you know if the Forests Commission takes any steps to make these mill owners provide dug-outs?
Yes. I personally, under instructions from the district officer, have requested that they do so.

Have you requested all these mill owners to provide dug-outs?
At various times.

What have you done when they did not do so?
I have reported it to the District Officer.

How long ago would it be since you received that instruction from the District Officer to require these people to provide dug-outs?
I do not know that I received it in this district, but in other districts I have been in it has always been the custom to request dug-outs or to have a look for them.

You have definitely gone round for the purpose of seeing whether these people in this district have dug-outs?
Yes.

Have you reported the fact that many of them have not?
Only verbally.

Were you given any instructions as to what to do?
I have had no instructions given me.

As far as you are concerned, that is the way the matter has dropped. You have simply reported it to Mr. Ure, and received no further instructions since. Many mills are still without?
Yes, that is so.

[The Commissioner] Do you know whether anything has been done following your report concerning the lack of dugouts?
I have heard nothing.

Something may have been done but you may not have heard of it?
Yes.

[Mr. Gowans] Do you know that it is still the position that these places you have mentioned have not got dug-outs; how long is it since you have seen them?
I visited the mills up to a week of the big fire.

Can you say how long ago it was that you verbally reported this matter to your superior officer?
I could not.

Was it one, two or three years ago?
Within the last twelve months. I should like to make it clear that these reports have been in the nature of personal conversations - just a remark to the effect 'Have so-and-so a dug-out? I have not seen it', or something like that. It was not a formal notification of lack of dug-outs.

[The Commissioner] Just sufficient to bring it to your officer's mind?
Yes.

Without perhaps impressing it with sufficient force?
Yes.

Apart from your report, would he in any case have known that for some time past they had not had dug-outs and that you were merely reporting that they still had not got them?
I think so.

[Mr. Gowans] Are you able to say that he was still considering it as a matter of importance?
I am not able to say.

I understand you carried out fire fighting operations here during the big fires in January?
I did.

Did you have all the men you wanted?
Yes.

Why did you hesitate in replying to my questions?
I am in a rather peculiar position. I am responsible to the District Forest Officer, and at that time I had no possible chance of controlling any fire in my district, under the weather conditions. You see, I would have needed several thousand men, on a conservative basis, to put out the fires in my district.

I was not putting the matter to you in that way. Did you have enough men for the purpose for which you required them?
Yes.

Were they all Forest Officers, or men of the Forests Commission?
Yes.

What has been your experience in regard to local inhabitants at Marysville? Have they always been prepared to give assistance or have you found them apathetic?
What little experience I have had with them, they have been apathetic.

Read more about Murray Thompson’s first-hand experience in the Black Friday bushfires in the Oral History Section