DESPITE what’s been described as the worst fire conditions in the region since Black Saturday, no major property losses or injuries have been recorded in the three bush fire events in the Mallee during the last few days.
CFA District 18 duty officer Assistant Chief Fire Officer Gavin Wright said crews had been kept busy with events at Boinka, Colignan, and Patchewollock however, the day could have been a lot worse locally.
“It certainly can be deemed in the Mallee a success given the weather conditions that were completely unfavourable,” he said.
“The losses have been so minimal. There are certainly environmental losses in Wyperfeld with over 50,000 hectares of park being burned, but it could have been a whole lot worse than the fact that, you know, private land losses are quite minimal.
“We probably saw the worst fire conditions in the Mallee since Black Saturday 2009.
“We’re talking about temperatures of 45-46 degrees and winds 40 kilometres gusting to 60 kilometres an hour and they are weather conditions where you will not hold a fire.
“A fire will run out of control and it doesn’t matter what sort of equipment you’ve got in front of it, Mother Nature will just continue to burn under those conditions and humans can’t intervene until the temperature drops and the wind decreases.”
One of the biggest areas of concern for authorities yesterday was at the Boinka fire during a wind change in the late afternoon.
The fire had originally burned south along Morrison Road before entering Wyperfeld National Park.
The wind change pushed the fire in a north-easterly direction parallel with the Mallee highway and resulted in a watch and act alert with a prepare to leave warning from authorities for nearby communities.
Mr Wright said significant resources were put into holding the fire to the boundary of the national park.
“We put about 25 trucks onto that fire yesterday,” he said. “Predominantly to catch the fire when it came out of the park on the wind change, which it did at about 3.30pm.
“It started to come out on the northern edge of Wyperfeld Park, between Cowangie and Walpeup.
“It did enter some private land, but predominantly they’ve held it to the edge of the park.”
At Colignan, Mr Wright said firefighters also hit that blaze hard and early before it got into Hattah Kulkyne National Park.
“Forest Fire Management and CFA responded to a grass and scrub fire at Colignan,” he said.
“That grass and scrub fire grew to about 800 hectares. There’s been no losses from it, but it was a fairly significant fire at Colignan that had most of the fire trucks from the Sunraysia area at it for a fair part of the day.”
With the fires predominately contained to national parks now, Mr Wright said the situation presented a range of unique challenges.
“They’re difficult at any time given the size of the parks and the lack of access and the sandy country that can make traversing them quite difficult in vehicles,” he said.
Despite being just kilometres from the Boinka fire front, local fire crews on the ground were supported by four water bombers from the Linga Airbase.
The facility had been out of action in the days leading up to Friday for maintenance, but came back online to provide air service options to fire fighters.
Practically all local brigades were activated on Friday, and Sunraysia CFA crews were also send to help with the Ravenswood complex of fires south of Bendigo.
However, no local crews had been dispatched to fire events in other parts of the Victoria.
“There was a fairly significant contribution from across the Mallee though given that we also sent two strike teams to the Ravenswood South fire, south of Bendigo, the one that cut the Calder Freeway there,” Mr Wright said.
“That may happen later in the week, but at the moment we’ve just been fully committed on fires that are occurring in the Mallee and in our neighbouring district down at Bendigo.
“We’re supporting them. At the moment we haven’t gone further afield.
Despite the challenging conditions Mr Wright said local crews were able to deal with the fires on the own.
“We haven’t required any support yet from RFS (New South Wales Rural Fire Service) or from CFS (Country Fire Service) over in South Australia.
“That’s for the Mallee, but certainly RFS has sent, I think, a hundred firefighters to support I think the Longwood fire.”
While Saturday is a day of total fire ban across Victoria with condition rated as high, Mr Wright said the threat of fire was ongoing and people needed to stay aware of the conditions.
“It’s a reminder to both residents and tourists to the Mallee that we are a very fire-prone area and our fires can move very, very quickly,” he said.
“You’ve got to be aware of your surroundings and the weather and follow; follow the advice from emergency services and have the VicEmergency app.”
As of 1.30pm on Saturday the Colignan fire was not controlled with a stay Informed advice active for Colignan, Hattah, and Kulkyne.
The Boinka fire was listed as watch and act – threat is reduced for Baring, Big Desert, Boinka, Linga, Patchewollock, Torrita, Underbool, and Walpeup.
The Patchewollock fire had an stay Informed advice for Baring, Hopetoun, Patchewollock, Yaapeet, Yarto, and Dattuck.
For the most up-to-date information on the fires across the state visit the Emergency Victoria website or use the smart phone app, as well as via emergency broadcasters ABC Local Radio, commercial and designated community radio stations, and/ or Sky News TV.
