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.

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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:




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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.

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