Local Fires Update – Jan 29

FOUR fires continue to burn locally, but have been contained or brought under control.

Myles O’Reilly, district coordinator for the Liverpool Plains Rural Fire Service, said the all crews were busy during the weekend but they feel they are on the home stretch.

“The fires last week certainly have posed their challenges for the whole time we have had aerial support which is re bombers and chopper son that doing reconnaissance and bombing and heavy plant,” said Mr O’Reilly.

“The fire at Woolooma is being controlled, it is very steep and has heavy forest which poses a whole number of challenges,” he said.

“The fire at Castle Gully (Moonan Brook) is being controlled as well, it is about 300 hectares in size, similar to the Woolooma fire it is steep terrain and heavy timber.

“At Rouchel that is currently contained and we’ve been working in conjunction with the mines with heavy plant, which has been really good.

“Heaven Ridge (Dry Creek) is about 91 hectares in size and that’s contained, it’s been rounded up and where there is any hot spots we are identifying those and containing those,” he said.

“There have been a few lightening strikes over the weekend that crews were sent to, such as the power pole at Willow Tree which led to a power outage,” he said.

“Essential Energy were pretty quick off the mark, within 10 minutes of making a request they were on route, which makes a huge difference to our crews which are potentially sitting on a power pole waiting for it to be secured,” Myles O’Reilly said.