Authorities feared Gracemere would be ‘mown down’ by raging bushfire

Emergency Minister Craig Crawford is still in disbelief, but proud of the band of firefighters and their co-ordinators for saving a town he feared would be “mown down” by a wall of fire. This is how the town of Gracemere was saved from the flames.

A combination of water-bombing sorties, computer modelling and the grit of emergency service workers was how the central Queensland town of Gracemere was spared from being razed.

Emergency Minister Craig Crawford is still in disbelief, but proud of the band of firefighters and their co-ordinators for saving a town he feared would be “mown down” by a wall of fire.

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Not one life or house was lost he said, about a dire situation that was to become one of huge relief for 8000 residents who had been ordered to leave at a moment’s notice on Wednesday afternoon.

“It wasn’t a stroke of luck, it was exceptionally good planning,” Mr Crawford said.

“It was having good information at our fingertips and being able to communicate with the public (to leave now).”

The moment the fire broke containment lines at Stanwell, some 15km southwest of Gracemere, the plan to save the town and evacuate residents was swung into action.

Several hundred thousand emergency text messages and phone calls were disseminated to central Queensland residents to immediately evacuate Gracemere.

The forecast tracking map shows the fires heading towards Gracemere earlier in the week.

Mr Crawford said text messaging had simplified managing major disasters and freed police from having to door knock every home or go street-to-street to spread the word.

“Imagine the time knocking on doors and having those conversations to leave, it would take forever and that is the advantage of using all that technology,” he said.

Computer modelling, which takes in all the variables including weather patterns, predicted the fire’s path and the pace at which it would advance.

Water bombing aircraft were diverted from other areas of central Queensland to assist fire fighters scrambling to contain the rapidly advancing flames.

“When the Stanwell fire broke containment lines we had computer modelling people on it straight away using the best equipment we’ve got,” Mr Crawford said.

“Everything is at their fingertips and within minutes they were able to give us high level intel of burn maps and what the fire will do and it was making bee-line for Gracemere”

In all nine aircraft, including a spotter to direct the water bombers to their targets, made dozens of sorties over several hours, many from Rockhampton airport, to douse the blaze.

Cars backed up on the Capricorn Highway as people evacuate from Gracemere near Rockhampton #QLDFires @abcbrisbane.pic Rachel McGhee ABC

However, they were grounded at dusk but only after spending several hours of saturating the fire.

Police assisted with the movement of locals while fire fighters on the ground attempted to contain or, if not, steer the blaze away from Gracemere.

Mr Crawford said the speed and intensity of the blaze ruled out back burning being any sort of option.

“We had eight bombers, and that includes helicopters, and an observer…it was pretty intense,” he said.

He said there was no specific showdown between emergency service workers and a wall of fire that brought an end to the fear that Gracemere would be reduced to ashes.

The flames were attacked and subdued from several positions with the water bombing sorties reducing the intensity at the front.

“There was no one grand stand. Generally, you attack it from the edges… so it would have been a combination of a lot of things,” Mr Crawford said.

“There was not one great big line in the sand which is what they used to do in the eighties.

“It’s essentially work from the edges and steer it away from significant structures and use the aerial bombers to dump water on the front to take the sting out of it.”

Despite repeated warnings for the township to be evacuated, Mr Crawford was unsure if everyone had heeded the direction.

“We have not lost any homes at Gracemere but we haven’t seen the report on any other structures…mainly things like sheds,” he said.

“We don’t know if everyone evacuated but police said this morning they saw no evidence of people left in Gracemere but anyone who was still there was bunkered down.”

Mr Crawford said it wasn’t until the early hours of Thursday that the fire had been contained and Gracemere saved although residents were not told until first light.

“We didn’t want people to go back during the night…and then the return would have been orderly and we didn’t want to send them back to early unless we had to re-evacuate them.”

‘WE THOUGHT GRACEMERE WOULD BE MOWN DOWN’

EARLIER: Emergency Services Minister Craig Crawford has spoken of his relief that a town south of Rockhampton was not “mown down” by a horrendous bushfire.

Mr Crawford expected the worst yesterday when the bushfire was making a beeline for Gracemere and the township’s 8000 residents had to be evacuated.

He said preliminary official reports this morning indicate no loss of life or injury and minimal property damage.

“We still have no loss of reports of injury or loss of life and yesterday morning I was expecting today to be one of those days it would go down in history in Queensland where we would have suburbs mown down, we would have people that were unaccounted for by last night,” Mr Crawford told ABC Radio.

“As it turned out it was not that at all.”

He praised the tireless work of emergency services and interstate firefighters as well as the local community.

“It’s a different start to the day than what it was yesterday. There is a bit of air of relief and quite a bit of confidence now and we have hopefully seen the worst of that.”

Gracemere was blanketed in smoke.

Mr Crawford said the unpredictability of the fire made it a dire situation as there was no advance warning for the people of Gracemere that they would be in the direct path of the bushfire.

“You see this sort of thing sometimes in the north of the state with cyclones but they have days and days to know that it is coming. They had no advance warning whatsoever,” he said.

“That was a really trying time for them. We’ve done pretty well so far.”

The view towards Gracemere from Rockhampton's city centre on Wednesday. Picture: Twitter/7NewsCQ

He said there had been unofficial reports of houses being burned to the ground, but until officials return to the area and audit the damage, he was cautious about providing numbers of how many homes had been lost.

He said sometimes initial reports of homes being lost were incorrect as it may have been a shed and he did not want to raise alarm with locals until there were official sightings.

“We need to get on the ground and have people quantify that and tell us what it is,” he said.

“Across this state, with what we have dealt with in the last few days, to have a small amount of property loss is fantastic.”

All roads to Gracemere were re-opened by 7am and police advised residents it was safe to return.

There were unconfirmed reports this morning of looting in the town area.

There are currently 106 fires burning across the state but favourable conditions overnight allowed firefighters to make huge progress on one major fire at Gracemere, near Rockhampton, with Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk this morning saying the town had been “saved”.

She said huge efforts from firefighters overnight, including waterbombing, saved the town and said residents would soon be able to return home.

Police revoked an emergency situation for Gracemere at around 5.30am. It had been in place since about 3.50pm yesterday.

The raging cloud of smoke from the fires around Rockhampton on Wednesday.