Tuesday, 22 March, 2022
Lilydale
Need for Feed raises donations for floods
Seville pilot reaches angel flight milestone
DVD exchange bringing people together
Celtic festival returns after two year hiatus
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A Star News Group Publication
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Festival fun for all The Celebrate Mooroolbark Festival was held on 19 and 20 March, with the theme reconnecting after a tough two years. The Hookey Park event reactivated the suburb, bringing back energy and life into the CBD. For the duration of the festival weekend, George Street was open to foot traffic only, creating a family-safe connection between Brice Avenue and Hookey Park and encouraging local shoppers to venture over and participate in the festivities. The event was held with the support of Yarra Ranges Council through sponsorship and ran from 9am to 4pm across Saturday and Sunday, with over 80 stalls, live entertainment and activities for attendees to enjoy. For more pictures from the event turn to page 11 Diyenka from Mooroolbark gets into the festival spirit with face painting. Picture: STEWART CHAMBERS
Smokey outcries By Mikayla van Loon Thick smoke blanketed the eastern suburbs and even extended into the city over the long weekend as planned burns in Mount Evelyn and Montrose formed part of the autumn fire reduction strategy. As the grey haze started filling the air, social media comments went rampant from residents in Mooroolbark, Lilydale and across the Yarra Valley who were concerned about the cause,
with fires also in Powelltown, McMahons Creek and Lysterfield. Lilydale SES and local CFA crews had to issue pleas on social media not to call triple zero in an attempt to alleviate firefighters being called out to the sites of the burns as panic settled in. Emerald resident Kate Forster has researched the impacts of biomass smoke pollution as a concerned citizen for many years and said she was deeply worried about the impact
of the smoke on everyone’s health. “The community needs to know how to protect themselves and the information on that has been inadequate,” she said. “Wood smoke’s health impacts are similar, some studies indicate, to tobacco smoke. Most people wouldn’t allow someone these days to smoke beside their children but the amount and extent of smoke from the weekend incident was much greater than that.”
Other social media posts related to the necessity of burning over a long weekend when local events like the three day Warburton Trail Fest were being held. In Warburton at 9am on Sunday 13 March, according to the AirRater app that tracks local air pollution conditions, the result was returning a ‘very poor’ reading compared to the EPA’s ‘fair’ forecast on Saturday 12 March. Continued page 3
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