Murrurundi Fire – Timely Reminder

THERE is a grass fire burning approximately three kilometres south of Murrurundi and one at Mt Helen’s near Willow Tree.

Myles O’Reilly, district coordinator for the Liverpool Range Fire Service said there is no cause for alarm at this stage, but it is a timely reminder for people in townships to have a fire plan.

“It seems fairly close, so they’ll be seeing some smoke but it’s not a very large fire, it will put of a bit of smoke and Mt Helen’s is a bit further, but they’d be seeing smoke from that as well,” said Mr O’Reilly.

“At the moment there is no major threat, but what we want to do is put some containment lines in to make sure it gets bottled up,” he said.

“There’s no warnings as such and people don’t need to be too concerned, but it is important to stay informed on the Fires Near Me App, look at the RFS website and listen to the radio because that will be their conduit for information that comes in and obviously be aware of the environment outside, often people don’t take the time to have a look,” he said.

“It’s a really timely reminder for people to have a fire plan,” he said.

“People in the country are generally more resilient than those who live in townships and people who live on the boarders between the town and the countryside,” he said.

“People who live in the interface believe they wouldn’t really be impacted by issues that affect the country side when in fact that’s not the case and can be more vulnerable in some respects,” he said.

“The man issue has been the dry lightning storms which have come across so I’d like to say we won’t experience any more of those before the week is out, but there could be a few later today and into this evening,” he said.

“At Mt Helen the challenge is the topography itself which is pretty inaccessible, but our key strategy has been where we can to get a heavy weight of resources in their quickly to knock it down and to get really good intelligence for where the fire is, where it is going and where it might impact then develop strategies to deal with that,” he said.

“We’ve had a chopper in the area doing aerial observations and reconnaissance work, that has come back now and it will help us develop strategies,” he said.

“Even though we may use the bucket on the chopper, we may still have some pockets where it can rise again,” Myles O’Reilly said.

Related Story: Update Murrurundi and Moonan Fires.

Visit the NSW Rural Fire website to develop a Fire Plan.