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

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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.