A Longwood bushfire victim who lost her home, pottery studio and years of work says the conditions that allowed January's devastating fire to spread from the Hume Freeway corridor still exist and could trigger another disaster. Ceramic artist Alie McIvor said roadside vegetation at the very site where the fire started beside the Hume Freeway remained a major concern eight months after the blaze, describing the current length of vegetation growing beside the freeway as 'not good enough'. "It's going to happen again," Ms McIvor said. "The grass is about three feet tall and starting to dry. "The amount of overgrowth underneath those trees and among the (freeway) cable barriers, there are actual trees growing inside of them too, it's all fire fuel." Ms McIvor and her partner escaped the fire with little more than the clothes they were wearing, losing their home, pottery equipment, kiln, and studio when the blaze swept through the area on the fire's first day. She said the current fuel loads could still create conditions that could allow a future roadside ignition to escape into surrounding farmland this summer and that maintenance of roadside vegetation and driver awareness did not match the responsibilities that locals have always had during a fire danger period. She said it was frustrating that residents had done everything possible on any extreme fire danger day, including 7 January. "We didn't do anything wrong. We did everything right," she said. "Everybody knew it was a terrible high fire danger day. "None of us lit barbecues, none of us used an electric saw, none of us did any of those things because we were all very aware. "But some person on the freeway managed to cause the spark and took us all out. "That butt or spark should never have left the freeway. "If another spark does leave the Hume, and it will, then it will all happen again."
