Tributes flow for fallen fireman

A VICTORIAN man who died while fighting bushfires in Tasmania has been described as a remarkable person.

Peter Ronald Cramer, 61, from Tyers in Victoria's Gippsland region, died yesterday while assisting backburning operations at Taranna, east of Hobart, on the Tasman Peninsula.

The Department of Sustainability and Environment firefighter had been working on foot to identify potential containment lines on the southern boundary of the Forcett fire about 3km from the active fire edge.

DSE chief fire officer Alan Goodwin said Mr Cramer had been a DSE firefighter for more than 30 years and a CFA volunteer for more than two decades.

He was a DSE training co-ordinator who also volunteered his time to train CFA volunteers.

"Peter was a well-respected and trusted member of the DSE community," Mr Goodwin told reporters in Melbourne.

"He was a very experienced firefighter.

"He spent a lot of time training and advising a lot of our younger firefighters coming through.

"He knew the bush, and it's a sad loss."

Mr Cramer was one of more than 70 Victorian emergency services workers sent to Tasmania on Thursday to help fight the state's devastating fires, which have destroyed more than 130 properties since January 4.

He was due to return home tomorrow but was found dead at 5pm yesterday on a bush track after he failed to make a scheduled call-in.

Mr Goodwin said the cause of death was unknown, and Mr Cramer had recently passed a fitness test.

"Certainly all our firefighters that we send away, all our firefighters go through our fit-for-fire program, through medical testing and so forth, and Peter was certainly part of that," he said.

Mr Goodwin said he first met Mr Cramer on a deployment to the US in 2003.

"He was always fun, he greeted you with a smile and a solid handshake, and that's how I will remember him," he said.

Mr Goodwin said the most important thing now was to support Mr Cramer's wife Julie and their children.

In a statement, Mr Cramer's wife and family said they wanted to "express how truly well-loved Peter was by everyone who knew him".

Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley said losing a firefighter had come as a shock.

"To lose someone in active duty is something you don't plan for," he said.

"We take our caps off to what Peter has done in three decades of service to Victoria through firefighting."

A CFA spokesman said Mr Cramer's colleagues at Swifts Creek and Tyers, where he was a member, had been devastated by the news.

He said Mr Cramer was very well known and well regarded in the Gippsland region because of his work as a trainer.

Mr Cramer would volunteer his time to work with "dozens and dozens and dozens" of new recruits, he said.

"He was a pretty remarkable person," the spokesman said.

"He really dedicated his life to fire management.

"We're supporting his brigade and those in Gippsland who will be feeling his loss pretty deeply."

The Tasmanian and Victorian premiers have sent their condolences to his family.

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