Losing 'a perfect man, my hero'
The Age
Friday March 5, 2010
RACING away from the bushfire in his Ford Falcon, Strathewen man Peter Avola drove through thick smoke as he travelled along Chads Creek Road.With his wife, Mary, following in a car behind, Mr Avola approached a gradual left-hand turn, hit the brakes, but travelled straight ahead and skidded off the dirt road.His car came to a stop on a mound of earth on the wrong side of the road. This presumably left him unable to move forward and unable to reverse.Mrs Avola then stopped alongside in her vehicle, to check on a man she described in a statement to the Bushfires Royal Commission yesterday as "a perfect man. He was my hero."Tragically, it was the last time Mrs Avola saw her husband of more than 43 years alive."There was a little dam below where he was. I parked on the road alongside of him. I did as he said and he was motioning to me to go. It didn't even occur to me to tell him to get in with me. Too much was happening. I drove down Chads Creek Road towards the oval and I stopped and waited for him, but he didn't come. I had ash coming in the car and the flames were all around me up in the air. I saw kangaroos everywhere and horses running around me," she said.Mrs Avola then travelled to a nearby house, belonging to the Minetts, and sheltered there while the Minetts defended the property. The Minetts' house survived.That evening, after the fire-front had passed, Mrs Avola learnt of her hero's fate.A local resident went to search for Mr Avola on a trail bike and found his body on a grassy area of the Strathewen sports ground used for car parking, near the sports oval. On foot, he had covered 290 metres from where his car had become stuck.Police arson chemist John Kelleher investigated the location where Mr Avola was found and where his car was discovered.Mr Kelleher said Mr Avola was possibly heading to the Minett house, where his wife had sought refuge. Mr Kelleher said the 67-year-old would have battled extreme heat and smoke and been physically stressed. "In the circumstances, the exertion of running 300 metres from his car may have caused a physical collapse," he said.A post-mortem found that Mr Avola died from the effects of the bushfire. It did not conclude that he had a heart attack or stroke.Mr Kelleher's report also said that staying in the car "would have been in accordance with the CFA advice", while the small dam near the car could have provided a "relatively safe refuge €” but Mr Avola may have been more concerned about his wife".Mrs Avola described her late husband as "a gentle family man" who was "always smiling. He loved me and his family and would do anything for anybody," she said.Mrs Avola's statement to the commission also expressed some criticism of the CFA. She said Strathewen locals who attended a CFA meeting a couple of years ago were told that there were some areas in the community that the CFA would not go. "There was an uproar about that," she said. But when people asked what those areas were, CFA officers would not reveal them, she said.
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