The township of Strathewen, where 27 people died on Black Saturday, never received a warning from the Country Fire Authority, the Bushfires Royal Commission has heard.
Jack Rush, QC, counsel assisting the commission, asked CFA chief officer Russell Rees why Strathewen was never alerted to the impending danger of the Kilmore East fire on February 7.
Mr Rees said an area that covered Strathewen was warned on the CFA website.
He said urgent threat messages were issued for Whittlesea and St Andrews, an area that encompasses Strathewen, as well as nearby Arthurs Creek.
Mr Rush asked Mr Rees if the reason no new messages regarding the Kilmore East fire were posted on the website between 4.35pm and 5.55pm was because the local incident control centre (ICC) did not know where the fire was at the time.
"I couldn't make that judgement. I wasn't there ... so I couldn't say they didn't know where it was,'' Mr Rees said.
Mr Rees said he "couldn't say'' whether the fact that Strathewen wasn't warned also indicated the ICC did not know where the blaze was burning.
Earlier today, the royal commission heard Marysville residents were not told their township was in the direct path of the Black Saturday fires until nearly 45 minutes after it had begun to burn in the nearby town of Narbethong.
Mr Rush asked Mr Rees why alerts and not urgent-threat warnings were given to communities in the hours before a forecast wind change, when it was predicted those areas would be directly affected by a new fire front driven by the south-westerly change.
"All I can say to that inference is (that with) the information they had at the time ... they gave warnings as best they could,'' Mr Rees said.
The commission investigating the February 7 bushfires that killed 173 people heard fire experts had predicted the blaze would spread from Narbethong to Marysville, particularly when the south-westerly change swept through about 6pm.
At 3.30pm the Murrindindi Mill fire, believed to have been deliberately lit, hit the town of Toolangi, 70 kilometres from Melbourne.
The incident control centre at Alexandra was estimating the fire was 20 metres high, spotting 20 kilometres ahead and spreading at a rate of 8 km/h, the commission heard.
The commission heard yesterday that a fire tower at Mount Gordon reported seeing the fire spot into Narbethong at 4.30pm.
At 4.45pm an urgent threat message was issued to the township of Narbethong.
Department of Sustainability and Environment's chief fire officer Ewan Waller said by 5pm the fire was burning Narbethong.
Mr Waller today admitted the next town in the fire's path, particularly given the forecast wind change, was Marysville.
But Mr Rush said it wasn't until 5.27pm that an urgent threat message went out to Marysville residents.
Less than an hour later, a spot fire was burning in the town and by 7pm the Marysville DSE office was on fire, the commission heard.
Mr Waller said that, as with the Kilmore East fire, forestry expert Kevin Tolhurst had prepared a map of the Murrindindi Mill fire on Black Saturday at the combined DSE and Country Fire Authority control centre in East Melbourne.
Mr Waller said he had seen some of the maps produced by Dr Tolhurst and other fire behaviour experts but could not recall if he had seen the one that predicted the spread of the Murrindindi Mill fire.
The map had accurately forecast what would happen to the eastern front of the fire between 6pm and 10pm with a wind change expected to hit at 6pm.
The map was produced between 5.35pm and 6pm, the commission was told.
Mr Waller said such maps were "quite an important source of information" and should have been faxed to the local incident control centre, which would then decide how to incorporate it into warnings given to the community.
Mr Rush questioned why the Integrated Emergency Coordination Centre in Melbourne, given the pressure the Alexandra control centre was under, did not play a greater role in ensuring up to date warnings were being given to communities.
The hearing continues.
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