DESPITE the Bushfire Royal Commission hearing that there were not enough qualified firefighters on site when the Kilmore East fire broke out, Kilmore CFA captain Greg Murphy said nothing could have been done to tame the blaze.

Mr Murphy said a new fire response system has been put in place since the bushfires, but warned that no amount of preparation could stop a fire like Black Saturday’s.

“Although we have enhanced our response system, it would have made no difference on Saturday the seventh of February,” he said.

“It was just Mother Nature flexing her muscles.”

Under the new system, four crewmembers will be at the Kilmore control centre, and an extra five will be available to attend the centre within 60 minutes.

An incident control, operation and information officer will be among the initial crew members at the control centre.

On high-risk days, eight controllers will man the centre with up to 22 extra controllers available within 120 minutes, and on catastrophic fire danger days, the same number of officers will be available but the response time will be just 60 minutes.

“We have an enhanced pre-planning and pre-positioning system in place, it will significantly improve our response time,” Mr Murphy said.

At last week’s Royal Commission, investigators heard that there was a lack of qualified staff at Kilmore when the Kilmore East fire started on 7 February.

But Mr Murphy told Star that while there were not enough “endorsed” incident controllers at the scene on Black Saturday, he believed the firefighters present were as well equipped as any to fight the blaze.

Mr Murphy, a level two incident controller, was charged with the responsibility of putting together an incident management team in the absence of a level three incident controller.

He was put in charge at 12.05pm, 15 minutes after the fire started, and wasn’t relieved of his duty until a level three controller from Mansfield came to replace him at 4.30pm

“We had an incident management team within an hour at Kilmore and by 2.30pm there were level three people in all functional units,” Mr Murphy told Star.

Mr Murphy said while the Kilmore incident control centre was properly set up, it wasn’t staffed when the fire broke out.

“There were two qualified officers within half and hour and seven or eight by 2.30pm,” he said.

Mr Murphy said he wanted the community to be assured that the Kilmore brigade was fully prepared for this fire season.