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.