Update 28 October - and thanks

We had 1.5mm of rain overnight as light falls over a long period, quite low temperatures, and high Relative Humidity, with very little wind.

This morning there was still smoke arising from a few places in the Hills east of the Outlook Crescent properties, though that has lessened during the day.

A QPWS fire crew came by this morning doing a final check on the containment lines in our area.  No fire activity to report.

When I drove back at midday from a meeting over at Stockyard Creek there was no one at the Command Centre on the corner of Sandy Creek Road and Fords Road, and it was all locked up.

So it does seem that this fire event in the part of the Hills around Wallers Road is over.

No recent news about the fire in the Ergon-Long property / Whipbird drive area, but I assume that is under control too.  Will let you know if I hear differently.

　

Time for some thanks.  On behalf of the Helidon Hills Smokespotters group and the Helidon Hills community:

• thanks to all those who provided information updates to KP and I for sharing via the email lists and the Smoksepotters web site.  Your assistance has been very much appreciated.

• thanks to the Incident Controllers at the Fire Command Centre who found time in their busy and stressful days to provide situation summaries with which the Smokespotters group could keep the community up-to-date.  Your trust and cooperation has been very much appreciated.

• thanks to Peter Cavendish and Dean Payne for your cooperation and assistance, both in relation to our property and to the sharing of information to be passed on to the community.

• thanks to KP (my co-Coordinator) for taking care of things at the Ravensbourne end of the Hills where you had your own fire to deal with.

Words cannot express the gratitude Hanneke and I feel toward the fire crews who worked cooperatively with us to identify ways to back burn from our house and access track with minimum impact.  We are in awe of the many Parks and Rural fire crews who on another day worked nearly to the point of exhaustion to stop a fire that had got into an unburned area with a very high fuel load.  We were amazed that you could stop that fire under those conditions.  Thanks too to those friends who offered to come and help us out.

Gordon

Fire Update 1800h 27 October

Sandy Creek

The fire situation in the Sandy Creek area is under control.

Outlook Crescent - Vinegar Hill

A fire which burned down into a tributary of Lilydale Creek from the back of the Bilson property yesterday morning is now burning in thick lantana in Lilydale Creek on the Bilson / Claridge boundary and is being monitored by a fire crew.

There has been light rain in this area and temperatures have dropped considerably since 3.00pm.

1000+ page views in 58 days

The Smokespotters web site went up late on 31 August this year.  After the first few days the site was averaging 10 hits per day and gradually increased until the start of the current fire incidents. 

Since last Saturday (20 October), hits on the site have ranged from around 40 per day to more than 100.  This is a great outcome as it pretty clearly shows that the site is serving a useful purpose, both as a community information/liaison service during fire incidents, and in making people aware of fire issues.

If you have been accessing the web site, or receiving emails, for information during the current fire incident we would appreciate your views on:

• what you particularly appreciated about the Smokespotters web site during the fire, including the information that you found most useful;
• what additional kinds of information you would wanted to see on the site; and
• any other ways in which the web site can be made more useful during fire incidents.

Please send your comments (preferably under the headings of the dot points above) by email to gfclaridge[at]gmail.com and we will endeavour to improve the service prior to future fire incidents in the Helidon Hills.

Thank you

Gordon and KP (Smokespotters Coordinators)

Fire Update 1030h 27 October

Sandy Creek

This morning there were three fire crews at the Adsett property off Sandy Creek Road and more were on the way to help secure it.

During the night fire crews back burned around the Garrard house, in addition to the back burn from Garrard Lane last night to meet the fire coming down from Seventeen Mile Road.

Forestry Road - Pine Road

The 200m infill back burn from a containment line in the Pine Road area was completed successfully last night.

Outlook Crescent - Forestry Road

Fire crews monitored the situation during the night (the severe winds forecast did not eventuate) and a reconnaissance by a fire crew this morning found no issues around the houses in Outlook Crescent or on Forestry Road past Beech Road.

General Area

Fire crews will be monitoring the situation and mopping up today and possibly into tomorrow.

Can you help Smokespotters to raise some money?

The Helidon Hills Smokespotters is a completely volunteer community organisation.  In fact it is a network of individuals who share a common objective - have a look at the About and History tabs above for a good description of what we do and why.

The Coordinators can run up large phone bills during a fire event.  Even just identifying the location of a smoke sighting in a complex situation can coast about $20 in phone bills.  But none of the Smokespotters minds the expense involved, if it leads to a useful outcome for the community, the environment and the fire services.

However, each Smokespotter needs to be equipped with an expensive bearing compass, accurate to around 0.5 degrees, which costs over $200, and mobile smokespotters require GPS units in order to accurately identify the point from which they are taking a bearing on a smoke sighting from the roadside.

We currently have an application with the Lockyer Valley Regional Council for funds to allow us to buy more compasses and GPS units - both for outfitting some current Smokespotters, and for the additional Smokespotters we need to recruit to make the group more effective.

It would be fantastic to be able to supplement our application to the Council with your supportive comments on the contributions the group has made in the course of this bushfire event.  Those contributions range from making the first sightings and reports of the four fires which an arsonist set along Wallers Road, the first sighting and report of the lightning-caused fire in the Ergon-Long / Whipbird drive area, to the email and web updates that have been issued during these fire events.

If you are willing to help us, could you please send an email to gfclaridge[at]gmail.com with the subject line "Thanks Smokespotters" and your comments on how useful you have found the Smokespotter group's efforts.  We will compile these responses and submit them to the Council as an Appendix to our application for funds.

Thank you

Gordon and KP (Smokespotter Coordinators)
[replace the [at] in the email address with @]

Fire Update 6.00pm 26 October

　

Don't forget the weather change expected tonight - ABC TV news just announced it would hit Toowoomba at 10.00pm (have a look at previous update for details).

There will be ten fire crews on duty tonight. Crews will be mainly patrolling and strengthening containment lines.

Back burning will occur on Pine Road to link up two sections of containment line, over about a 200m front (already happening I think, I've just seen the flames on our skyline).

Back burning will also occur on Garrards Land at Sandy Creek, to make sure that access to the Deucker property can be maintained in the face of the approaching fire front during the night.

This fire event is expected to need management by fire crews for another 48 hours.

More than 5,000ha has been burned - a significant jump on what was expected due to the fire that was started in the large property at the end of Adare Road, behind the planned containment line.

when it comes to bushfires, we are all neighbours

Fire update Sandy Creek Road 12.43pm today

[From Judy D]  At 12.43pm today the fire was at the corner of Garrards Lane and the control line up to Wagners. It was burning steadily but it was expected that there will be flareups when it reaches the second creek crossing where there is thick bladey grass.

Update 1430h 26 October

The main thing to report is the weather forecast (for Crows Nest, the nearest location with an up-to-date forecast and similar conditions to the Helidon Hills).

Maximum temperature is predicted to reach 33 degC this afternoon, Relative Humidity 35-45% dropping to 20-30% by 1500h.

Winds are expected to become W-NW at 25km/h with gusts to 35km/h.  At 11.00pm a SW change will come through with winds of 35-40km/h and gusts of 40-50km/h.

The fire team is currently watching the situation in relation to three houses in Sandy Creek (Adsett, Garrard, and Deucker) - fire moving in from the NW; and 21 in the Vinegar Hill area (vicinity of Beech Rd, Outlook Crescent, Forestry Road and Pine Road) - fire moving in from the W coming from Wallers Road.

Apart from those areas fire crews are mainly engaged in mopping up operations.

The Incident Controller will be flying over the area later this afternoon and I will try to get an update on the situation after 5.00pm.

Update 1830h 25 October

Seventeen Mile Road - Sandy Creek Road area

There will be a back burn tonight off Seventeen Mile Road from around its intersection with Goldmine Road  down to the containment line just past the large quarry on the left, and this will be continued down the containment line that runs from there down to Garrards Lane off Sandy Creek Road.

　

East and Southeast of Vinegar Hill (the hill, not the locality) and Outlook Crescent / Forestry Road area

The back burn that was planned for tonight from easternmost section of the containment line that starts in the Bracefield property (off Forestry Road / Pine Road) and goes north and northwest then northeast to meet with Redbank Creek Road is now in doubt.

This containment line was chosen because it avoids burning areas to the southeast of this line, including a significant area of private bushland on a large property at the end of Adare Road (on the lower right in the screen shot below).  However a fire was lit on that property today and is currently not under control.  Until it is clear whether that fire can be brought under control, no decision will be made as to whether to do the planned back burn.

Back burns are planned for this evening from the Brain and Jennings properties off Outlook Crescent.  Both properties have a common boundary with the Lockyer National Park and are potentially in the path of the wildfire burning east from Wallers Road.

Gatton Weather Forecast for 26 October

The weather forecast for Gatton for Friday 26 October is for a maximum temperature of 37 degC, Relative Humidity of 34% and wind from the WNW and NNW at 8-10km/h. (Some web sites are showing the predicted maximum as 33 degC).

Today, Wednesday 25 October there were reports of many instances of extinguished fires spontaneously re-igniting due to low humidity and high temperatures.  Today's temperature was predicted to be 30 degC and Relative Humidity only slightly higher than is predicted for tomorrow

Update 25 October 10.00am - delayed

Sorry for the delay - I was given this briefing at 10.00am, but when I arrived home from Sandy Creek, I showed two of the Parks firefighters where we would need a back burn against the wildfire coming down from Wallers Road.  We were looking around the area where this will be done when Hanneke discovered that fires which had burned themselves out last night had re-ignited.  She got a back-pack and started to deal with this while I worked with the Parks guys to work out the approach to the back burn - hopefully scheduled for this evening.

When they left I joined Hanneke in dealing with the newly resurrected fires.  However, received a phone call to say that when the Parks guys were driving out they discovered that a fire which had escaped across a fire break into a block that had deliberately not been burned for about 20 years - and was extinguished last night - had re-ignited and was burning furiously.

　

I left them to deal with that and call in reinforcements, and spent two hours working with Hanneke to get the re-ignited fires under control (which we did eventually), though then another fire from last night which had been crawling along a higher ridge became much more active and moved down to where we were working.  Leaving Hanneke to monitor the situation I made my way to the other outbreak, in the unburned area - which by this time had become quite a large fire, with several fire units in attendance.  I started helping out with that where I could, and suddenly it was 4.00pm  So here's the rather old news, though still (I hope) relevant.

Sandy Creek - Seventeen Mile Road Area

The firecrews did a bac kburn along Seventeen Mile Road past Henk Hagendoorn's place, then further on down past the Goldmine Road intersection.

It is planned to continue the back burn tonight (after 1800h) down the southern eastern side of Seventeen Mile Road to past the quarry where it will meet up with a back burn from a containment line that drops down to Garrard Lane.

East and Southeast of Vinegar Hill (the hill, not the locality) and Outlook Crescent / Forestry Road area

Fire crews will work throughout the day on strengthening the containment line that starts in the Bracefield property (off Forestry Road / Pine Road) and goes north and northwest then northeast to meet with Redbank Creek Road.  The first half of this road was used as a containment line for the back burn last night that burned west to meet the back burn from the Claridge property and the Blackboy Ridge orchard.  (The Claridge property was also used as the containment line for a back burn toward the west to meet the wildfire coming down from Wallers Road.

The bulldozed track from Wallers Road to Beech Road is secure today after last night's back burn.

Fire crews are hoping to get to the Jennings and Brain properties this afternoon to discuss a back burn tonight.

Ravensbourne - Ergon-Long property - Whipbird Drive area

A lot happened on the Ravensbourne fire fronts yesterday. The 'cavalry' arrived: police, fire crews, massive earth moving equipment, bulldozers, helicopters. Rural fire crews advised us that they would be aiming at containing the fire to stop it progressing up the hill to the Pascoe and Johnson/Neilson properties.

A containment line was graded the entire distance of Wackerling road, from Wallers Rd just near the Ravenbsourne National Park through to Seventeen Mile Rd. The backburning done by Private Forestry Management along the northern boundary of the Ergon block 1 was linked to the Eastern boundary of Ken Pascoe's,   continued up to the northern side of Whipbird Drive until Wackerling and then across it to the north to the National Park. A rough indication of the back burning line is indicated in  red, although this is not an official document, just my observations.

As a result all fire fronts have been back burned and risk of uncontrollable wildfire has been significantly reduced in this area for now. 

Properties on the Northern side of Whipbird Drive had the fire come closest. Several places were successfully defended, it is not yet known how others fared, at least two evacuations was 'voluntarily' enacted.

Fire Update 0831h 25 October

Sorry about the lack of posts lately - partly a lack of information coming in, but mostly that we had to prepare for a major burn around the properties in the corner of Vinegar Hill near just west of Wallers Road (Beech Road, Outlook Crescent, Forestry Road, and Pine Road).  

Events moved too quickly to be able to send out emails or put in in this blog, and the group of landowners involved was so small that it was quicker to communicate by phone.

The priority in this sector yesterday afternoon was to deal with the fire where it was very close to the bulldozed containment line between Wallers Road and Beech Road.  Once the fire crews had organised for backburning this area, attention shifted to planning the backburn from the properties off Outlook Crescent and then down Forestry Road.  This burn started in the late evening from our place (as the highest in the area), and then proceeded around the boundaries to the south and north.

I'm expecting reports on what has happened in the Ergon-Long / Whipbird Drive area on northern Seventeen Mile Road, and Sandy Creek Road in the next couple of hours.

Fire Update 0720h 24 October - Sandy Creek area

Sandy Creek area

[from Judy D. 0630h]
At midnight there was a red glow on the big hill on our north boundary which proved to be a fire lit all along from the eastern side of that ridge. The [Wallers Road] fire had no time to come right round, and it had not come across [Sandy Creek Road], it was deliberately lit and approaching our NE corner. We had no notification that this would be happening, but being slightly suspicious on these occasions due to long experience, a weather eye was kept. The fire was mostly small and creeping and easily extinguished where it was within reach, and the rest will be done when it is low enough. So the western ridge is now alight.

Fire Update 0630h 24 October

Southern Wallers Road / Vinegar Hill area

There was no wind for most of the night and that combined with low temperatures and high humidity meant that the fire hardly moved downhill.  A local temperature inversion seems to be holding the smoke down in the gullies where it "flows" downhill and makes it seem that the fire has moved much further than it really has.  By 4.00am there were no points of flame visible, where there had been a few at midnight and a lot just after sunset.

At the time of writing there is still no wind in the Vinegar Hill area.  The forecast for Gatton is for a maximum temperature of 24 degC and ESE winds of 21-24 km/h with Relative Humidity of 46-48%.  Current conditions are 14 degC, no wind, and 66% Relative Humidity.

Sandy Creek Road area

[from Judy D at 7.30pm last night]  Most of the day [23rd] the fire has crept in the gullies on the east side of Sandy Creek. At one stage there was a heavy cloud of smoke at the end of the road when a house was surrounded but undamaged. The fire then moved SE along the foot of the spur until about 5pm when the wind dropped a little and a backburn was lit from the control line right round the foot of the spur presumably to meet up with the fire coming the other way. Mostly the fire has been small, slow and very smoky. There are a few patches of fire still visible, but it seems to have settled down.

Update on fires 1516h 23 October

Ergon-Long property and Whipbird Drive

Northern extremity of fire has reached the far side northern side of Whipbird Drive [see Google Earth screen shot in earlier post] and is progressing towards the Esk Hampton Road.

Backburning of Ergon Lot 1 progressing vigourously.

According to Peter Ralph (Ravensbourne/Perserverance Rural Fire Brigade First Officer), via James Walcroft, a large fire is heading towardsThree Mile Rd., Crow's Nest, from the National Park.

All firefighting units at Cressbrook have have redeployed to Crow's Nest.

Sandy Creek Road

No new information available apart from a RFS/QPWS control centre being set up at junction of Sandy Creek Road and Fords Road.  I'll try for an update later.  If anyone has any solid information that needs to be made known to others in the area please feel free to send me an email (see email list message with this information, including my email address).

Southern Wallers Road / Vinegar Hill area

The fire front does not appear to have changed substantially apart from moving further east (against the wind, which continues to be strongly East and Southeast, and is forecast to remain the same into tomorrow), and to the north up the main Lilydale Creek valley.

QPWS will review the situation again this evening and again in the morning, with a view to doing a back burn late tomorrow, unless an unexpected change in the situation necessitates an earlier start.

Update Ergon-Long block and Whipbird Drive - northern part of 17 Mile Road

Just received this from KP 12.00 midday 23 October, no time to edit, apart from a couple of clarifications.

just heard from Gary Clarke [fire crew - Private Forestry Services Queensland contracted to Ergon], they are still back burning along the top end of portion 1 [outlined in red - the Ergon-Long block - known locally as Eagle Rock, but there is come confusion because the same name is used for another Ergon block], it's burning steadily, once that's completed (i gather some time later today) they are going to let the rest of the portion go to meet up with the other blocks that were burned off a couple of months ago.

click to enlarge

James and Ken [local property owners who have been working on controlling this fire for the last three days] are with David Ralph and Geoff Eudi (?sic?) from the Ravensbourne/ Perseverance rural fire brigade at the property of Mick Reedy down the end of Whipbird Drive [Whipbird Drive is the road that goes in an arc across the top of the screen shot]. 

 Ken said he thinks the fire will head from there up to the Esk Hampton Rd.

The rest of the local crews are all over at Cressbrook, the road between Ravensbourne and Cressbrook has been closed.

Update for Vinegar Hill area - Lilydale Creek Catchment

I've just been up on the hill behind our house with a compass and binoculars and have tried to map out where the fire front is at present.

Please bear in mind that this is only "apparent" - a lot of the front is behind ridges and is only inferred from the smoke, and sometimes it is not clear whether it is behind one ridge or two.

click to enlarge

For scale, the horizontal (E-W boundary running across the bottom third of the shot is 2.1km.  I am reasonably sure of the position of the front where it crosses the topmost bearing, and of the position in the mouth of the valley of the next tributary south, and of the position where the front meets the southernmost bearing. Most of the rest is conjecture.

Where earlier I had thought that the wind was becoming erratic and worried that it might be going to swing SW or W, it has now come back to blowing strongly, if intermittently, from the east, so is pushing the fire away from houses in the area at present.  However you should watch the wind carefully.  In yesterday's strong W and SW winds the fire front was sometimes moving at 1km per hour.  I'd estimate at present that the front is moving into the wind at something over 100m per hour - and much faster where it goes up slopes out of the wind.

The last I heard from QPWS (about 9.30am I think) was that the fire-fighting focus has been on the Sandy Creek Road area, which is downwind from the fire on parts of Wallers Road, and that that area has had priority for the very scarce fire crew/vehicle resources - there are a lot of other fires around SEQ.  No crews were available then for the southern Wallers Road / Vinegar Hill area, but were being actively sought from QFRS.

The fire in the Sandy Creek area was threatening houses on the southern side of Sandy Creek Road about one hour ago, and there were bulldozers working behind the houses to make containment lines.  The top bearing above was not only the limit, so far as I could see, of the fire in the main Lilydale Creek valley, but was also pointing directly to a very strong plume of smoke from the other side of Wallers Road, possibly in the Sandy Creek area.

Fire Update am 23 October

This is a summary of the situation around 1.30am last night, provided this morning by QPWS fire crew member

The fires along Wallers Road are now either continuous or nearly continuous for the length of Wallers Road from Seventeen Mile Road to near the jump-up in the south and are burning away from Wallers Road on both sides.  

The fire in the middle/southern part of Wallers Road has burned some way down into Sandy Creek and the strength of the W/SW winds yesterday prevented a dozer from opening up a containment line to stop it.

On the other (eastern) side of southern Wallers Road the fire moved only slowly east over most of the front, with some tongues moving more quickly (including one west of Outlook Crescent).

The containment line from the southern end of Wallers Road to Beech Road was opened up with a dozer in the afternoon and the fire is north of that line.

At the top of Wallers Road / Seventeen Mile Road the road edge from the Birthing Valley (controlled burn earlier this year on Birthing Valley) side of Gormans/Logans/Redbank Gully Road to Seventeen Mile Road intersection then along Seventeen Mile Road to below the Burkett property has been back burned.  The back burn along Seventeen Mile Road was done to stop the strong SE wind from pushing the fire across Seventeen Mile Road.

Property protection back burns commenced at the Bussey/Baker property as this was considered the most at risk and also because of its position in relation to the fire and other properties.  The burn around the buildings was continued on both sides of their access road back to Seventeen Mile Road.  

Back burns around other properties started in the west with the Burkett property and are now complete between there and Wallers Road.

There will be a meeting of fire crews this morning to scope out tactics, particularly in relation to the southern end of Wallers Road and Sandy Creek.  I hope to receive a briefing after that meeting - however I have to spend time preparing my property as the fire is around 1.5km away, so there may be some delays in preparing updates for the blog and email lists.

Fires update 1750h 22 October

Weather

The change in wind direction and speed (together with higher Relative Humidity) originally forecast for 10.00pm tonight was revised to occur at 7.00pm and in fact started to kick in in the southern Helidon Hills around 4.00pm.  Winds there are generally South East and not as strong as the Westerly and South Westerly winds have been earlier.

Southern Wallers Road Fire

This update is based on our own observations of the fires, and also on a briefing from the Murphys Creek RFB team who dropped in here around 530pm.  The W / SW winds activated the more southerly pair of fires which have now combined with the third fire further north (just out of this screen shot below) and moved east into the tributary valleys of Lilydale Creek, generally around 500m, but more in places, from Wallers Road. This fire is also burning further south, as well as west toward Fords Road. For scale, the horizontal boundary just below the middle of the the screen shot is 2.1km long.

Click to enlarge

The SE change late this afternoon has significantly slowed the eastward movement of this fire, but because of the dryness of the understorey vegetation the fire has been burning upwind at around 100m per hour.

Most or all of the properties in the Vinegar Hill locality around Forestry Road and its side roads have been visited by RFS crews during the day to assess fire-fighting resources and to provide information to landowners.  Some bulldozing of old containment lines is occurring east and west of the Forestry Road /Beech Road area, and into the Hills to the northeast of there.

Northern Wallers Road and west from Wallers Road along Seventeen Mile Road

Click to enlarge

This update is based on information from one of the property owners in the area, and on information from the Murphys Creek crew mentioned above.  I am hoping for an update from QPWS crews this evening, but at the moment they are out of mobile contact.

The fire has progressed further south either side of Wallers Road and there is some concern that the SE change could blow it back toward these properties.  Back-burning from buildings commenced around mid-afternoon and the burn from the edges of the grassy surrounds of the buildings on the westernmost property was completed by late afternoon.  At 1830h the fire was moving slowly downhill away from buildings.

I will post more on this area when I hear, as well as an update on the Ergon-Long & Pascoe fire on northern Seventeen Mile Road in the next couple of hours.

Further to the 10.50am Update

The firefighters will concentrate their efforts in the area of the properties on Seventeen Mile Road west of Wallers Road today and until further notice.

There is no plan at this stage to light up any back burns in the southern Wallers Road, Ringwood or Vinegar Hill area today unless the situation changes substantially.

If you know of people who are concerned about the fires, please direct them to this blog.

Fire Update 10.50am 22 Oct

The latest situation with the fires:

Southern End of Wallers Road

No visible activity but probably some pockets of fire, however the situation with the Northern End fire eliminates any hope that this might bring.

Northern End of Wallers Road

The fire has started up again, just starting to run in the grass mid-morning.  Because of the extent and location of the fire front it is not possible to fight it.  In any case the weather forecast for this afternoon would be likely to make this impossible.  This fire can be expected to join up with the burned areas in the Southern End, even if they do not flare up again.

Ergon-Long and Pascoe Fire - Northern End of Seventeen Mile Road

Ergon has brought in fire-fighting teams from Private Forestry Services Queensland.  They did not do the light-up of the entire block on the Ergon-Long land last night because the rain dampened down the fire and precluded lighting up other areas. The team will continue today and tomorrow to burn this area to block the movement of the fire to the south and west.

The containment line to the east of the Pascoe block appears to have held during the night and is being monitored today

Weather Forecast

The weather forecast for Amberley is:
between 2 and 4pm this afternoon - 35 degC, 16% Relative Humidity, WSW wind at 35km/h
around 10pm tonight - 64% RH, SE wind at 35-50km/h

 

Update on fires - 6.00am Monday 22 October

On the southern side of the Hills (Vinegar Hill / Wallers Road area) we had a short sharp storm last night which dropped 3mm of rain and seems to have extinguished the fires on the southern end of Wallers Road.  No doubt there are still hot spots that could flare up today, but for now there is no sign of smoke rising from the area.

I will get updates on the other fires as soon as possible.

Fires in the Hills - latest information as of 7pm 21 October

Fire north of Ergon-Long property - northern end of Seventeen Mile Road - east of KP Neilson property

This fire was reported by a Smokespotter Coordinator (KP) last night, and was apparently the result of a lightning strike.  The fire seems to have been held in check to the east of the Pascoe property by local landowners for most of the day (more or less along the boundary shown by the yellow line in the screen shot below), though the very dry condition of the bush made things difficult.  The fire had entered the Ergon-Long property (bounded in red on the screen shot below) last night and was burning there during the day.

Late this afternoon a range of resources have arrived on the scene (Private Forestry Service Queensland, and Ravensbourne Rural Fire Brigade), and a good amount of manpower and machinery is now available there. These teams will combine to burn the Ergon-Long property tonight, from containment lines already in place around the property, to block the fire from moving any further to the east or south.

Click to enlarge

Fire on Wallers Road south of the Wallers Road/Logans Road intersection, northern end of Wallers Road, just east of Seventeen Mile Road

This fire was reported by a Smokespotter (Kent S) at 1.00pm apparently soon after it was lit.  Both Smokespotter Coordinators were at KP's place helping to secure the house against possible ember attack and cooperated to work with Smokespotters to get a location on the fire (thanks to Kent S, and a local property owner Neal F), and to report it to the QPWS Duty Officer Southeast.

As a result a fire truck from Withcott Rural Fire Brigade was quickly on the scene, and commenced backburning along Logans Road to protect properties on the northern side of the road.  At this stage the fire was on the eastern side of Wallers Road.  One (possibly two) more Withcott vehicles arrived and joined in fighting the fire.  A QPWS fire crew arrived about an hour later and joined in the work.

At 5.10pm QPWS reported that the crews had been unable to keep the fire from crossing Wallers Road, and had now gone into property-protection mode, to liaise with the property owners immediately to the west of Wallers Road, along Seventeen Mile Road.  All resources which were not needed on this task were immediately diverted to the three other fires on Wallers Road (see below).

Very approximate area where this fire is burning:




Click to enlarge

Fires on the southern end of Wallers Road

When Hanneke and I were returning home after working with KP and then checking on Tony Alden's house on Wallers road we saw smoke from three fires on the southern end of Wallers Road.  We got bearings from the northern end of Fords Road, Placid Hills and then from our place (one fire is on Wallers Road directly west of us, and two more are on Wallers Road to the southwest.  We reported these to QPWS Duty Officer Southeast and he passed the information on to the QPWS teams on the ground.  They then diverted resources to these fires.

The pink pins show were our bearings indicated the fires were around 4.00pm.  The corner of the property in the top left is the southeasternmost property in the screen shot above.

Click to enlarge

BOM's Bushfire Weather page

The  Bureau of Meteorology has an page on Bushfire Weather.  While the information provided is of a general nature it provides some interesting information, though I did wonder how much it might need to be updated as climate change (and our understanding of its impacts) develops.  I've added this site to the new Fire Links section in the column on the right.

It makes reference to the BOM's Fire Weather Warnings - one was issued last Saturday evening for Sunday.  I've been wondering what triggers these and how they relate to the Fire Danger Index (which I don't think they mention).  Here's what the Bushfire Weather page says about them:

Fire Weather Warnings

The Bureau of Meteorology issues Fire Weather Warnings when the Fire Danger Index (FDI) is expected to reach or exceed a value of 50 (38 in Tasmania) either today or the next day. [So that's the link!  50 is the low end of the Severe FDR] Warnings are broadcast on radio and television. In most States and Territories, fire authorities declare a Total Fire Ban based on a range of criteria including the Forecast FDI from the Bureau.

The text and map below are clipped from the BOM Fire Weather.

High Risk Weather Patterns - New South Wales & southern Queensland

The fire season for most of Australia's east coast extends from spring to mid-summer. The greatest danger occurs after the dry winter/spring period, before the onset of the rainy weather common in summer. The worst conditions occur when deep low-pressure systems near Tasmania bring strong, dry, westerly winds to the coast, as occurred in the major New South Wales fires in January 1994 (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Historic Chart Analysis at 11am EDT on 7 January 1994, showing areas with extreme fire weather that resulted in serious bushfires in NSW and southern Queensland

New Forecast Fire Danger Rating for Sunday 7 October

Sunday's Fire Danger Rating

I've just been advised that the Fire Danger Rating for tomorrow Sunday 7 October was revised substantially upward at 11.50am this morning.

The predicted Fire Danger Rating for Ipswich (and therefore likely to be the same for the Helidon Hills) is 67, which is toward the high end of the SEVERE category (50-75).  A warning is expected to be issued this afternoon.

You can find an explanation of the Fire Danger Rating categories here, along with what you can expect of fire behaviour under these circumstances and the actions you should take.

The predicted weather conditions are: max Temperature 36 degC, Relative Humidity 10%, and westerly winds.

Currently (Saturday 6 Oct at 1334h) the WeatherZone web site shows Gatton's temperature as 32.9 degC, Relative Humidity as 14%, and Fire Danger Rating as 32.8, which puts it just into the Very High category.  This not the official FDR, and there are some caveats associated with their measure of the FDR, see the site for details.  It is also worth noting that the FDR on this site varies upward and downward over short time spans.

White Holden Commodore

A white Holden Commodore has been seen in a location where several fires have been set near Gatton recently. The vehicle left at high speed when approached.

If you see such a vehicle stopped near areas of bushland without any apparent reason, or in the vicinity of a bushfire, it might be a good idea to report it to the Police.

The Fire in the Lockyer Valley National Park

QPWS advise (around 1230h today) that the fire in the western section of the Lockyer National Park, between Seventeen Mile Road and Alice Creek has been contained and they are confident it will not move out of the area.

QPWS Fire Crew Patrols

QPWS advise that in view of the high Fire Danger Ratings this weekend there will be a fire crew patrolling in the D'Aguilar Range and Lockyer areas (unless they have to be assigned to a fire).

Photos of smoke as an aid to reporting and locating fires

A couple of recent incidents have highlighted the usefulness of photos of smoke that include the skyline for fixing the locations of fires, providing the photos are taken from known points.

Yesterday morning Geoff S sent me a photo from his location, showing the smoke from two fires in the Hills, both of which had been identified the previous day. This photo included the skyline view as well as Mt Cross, and, surprisingly, was more useful in accurately locating the fires and their extent than the bearings he was able to provide.  Here's a reduced version of the photo he sent (the original was about 3 Mb and so was able to be enlarged significantly for better identification of locations).  Even with this reduced size and definition you can see the smoke in the background beyond Mt Cross (the conical hill on the skyline), and another in the middle-ground behind a ridge.

The location and extent of the smoke in the middle-ground led us to recognise the possibility that this was not the permitted burn that had been reported as the likely source of the smoke the previous day.

As a result I contacted a local Smokespotter, Anton G, and he went as close as he could on his quad bike, and returned to report that it seemed to be well within the National Park.  I then contacted QPWS to advise them of my suspicions that this was not the permitted burn that we had previously reported.  They had already seen the earlier emails, including the one with this photo, and had despatched a fire crew to the area.  By the time I contacted them the crew was already engaging the fire and another crew was on the way.

KP also sent me a photo of smoke from her location a few weeks ago and it proved to be very useful in coming to grips with that fire too.

In fact, the photo behind the title of this blog was taken during the September 2009 fire that burned out a lot of the Hills south of Seventeen Mile Road.  It was taken after the fire had been burning for a couple of days, and shows the fire just moving south into the Lilydale Creek catchment.  This photo indicated that properties in that catchment were now at risk from this fire, particularly as it was to the west of most of them and they were thus vulnerable to any westerly wind that came up.

So, if you see smoke and conditions are right to take a photo of the smoke that clearly shows landscape features (Mt Perseverance and Mt Cross are particularly useful), and you are able to give us a precise location for the point from which the photo was taken, please email the photo and the location to me or to KP (along with the bearings if you have your compass with you).  I've added our email addresses to the Coordinators tab above.

Do not MMS the photo to any of my mobile phone numbers or to KP's.  Not only do I not use this service, but it would also require me to transfer the photo to my computer to be able to enlarge it enough to be useful.  Please also phone the Coordinator you send it to with a report on the smoke, as we do not constantly monitor our emails.

You don't need to be a Smokespotter to email photos of smoke sightings in the Hills, and do not need to have a compass bearing.  What the Smokespotters group strives for is the earliest possible reporting of fires.  Once an approximate location for the smoke has been received, the Coordinators can try to find Smokespotters who have views of the smoke to provide cross-bearings that will fix its precise location.

QPWS Fire Crews patrolling this weekend

I heard late yesterday from QPWS that they will have fire crews patrolling during the weekend in the light of expected Very High to Severe Fire Danger Ratings.  This is very good news. 

The Weather Zone site is currently (11.30am) showing the FDI as 21.7 which is within the forecast High Fire Danger that was forecast for today, but things could change quickly, and could be different in the Hills to those recorded in Gatton.

Somebody's Looking

Just checked the stats for page views of this blog.

348 page views since it was first posted on 31 August - more than 10 hits per day on average.

Good to know that we have an audience.