Qld bushfires: Timeline of events across the state
Queensland was warned to brace for one of the worst fire seasons on record – sadly the fears have already been realised. SPECIAL REPORT
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Queensland was warned to brace for one of the worst fire seasons on record – sadly the fears have already been realised.
All across the state the Queensland Fire and Emergency have been fighting bushfires – this is the timeline of tragedy so far.
AUGUST 3
Nine Queensland Fire and Emergency (QFES) crews were called to battle the 50 metre-wide blaze on the Gold Coast.
They soon got the Carrara inferno under control, but not before surrounding homes were enveloped in smoke, prompting a warning to residents to shut their doors and windows and remain indoors.
The blaze was the latest incident in an area where grass fires have appeared intermittently in recent weeks.
Firefighters warned Gold Coasters to make sure they are prepared for fire season amid fears that forecast hot and dry weather would see it beginning early this year.
AUGUST 6
Brisbane was bracing for one of its worst bushfire seasons yet, with the city council and Queensland Fire and Emergency Services ramping up their efforts to prepare the region amid the looming threat of El Nino.
Brisbane City Council doubled the number of prescribed burns and QFES increased training.
Brisbane City Council Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said the city faced a new threat that needed to be prepared for.
AUGUST 23
Nearly the entire Queensland seaboard was listed in the “red zone” this bushfire season, with two-thirds of the state placed on high alert in “never before seen” conditions.
Queensland’s high fire danger zone was listed as stretching from the Gold Coast to north Innisfail and west to Mount Isa.
The destructive bushfire season is due to the expected arrival of El Nino.
Queensland Firefighters Union state secretary John Oliver said this season would be a challenge for firefighters, who would face never-before-seen conditions.
SEPTEMBER 3
Parts of South West Queensland were placed on catastrophic bushfire alert, with firefighters urgently preparing for “uncontrollable” conditions as temperatures climb to 8C above average.
Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) state co-ordinator Tony Johnstone issued the catastrophic warning for all areas from Mingindi to St George, saying fires would spread quickly due to high grass.
The Darling Downs, Granite Belt and Warrego districts were the primary focus for fire danger.
SEPTEMBER 9
Residents near a bushfire threatened Tara on the Western Downs were being urged to leave or risk being isolated.
Queensland Fire and Emergency Services issued an alert just after 5pm which said the fire near Mary Rd was expected to impact Robbos Rd.
“Your life could be at risk. It will soon be too dangerous to drive,” the warning said.
Emergency services said conditions could worsen quickly, with properties likely to be impacted and firefighters may not be able to stop the blaze getting closer.
SEPTEMBER 12
North Queenslanders were being warned to prepare for the increased likelihood of higher temperatures, drought, and potentially deadly heatwaves and bushfires over spring and into summer.
The Bureau of Meteorology said that an El Nino was likely, although it officially remained at “alert” status.
BOM senior climatologist Hugh McDowell said its long-range weather forecast “already shows likely to very likely drier than average conditions across Queensland for much of spring and potentially into the start of summer as well”.
Mr McDowell said North Queenslanders should also be prepared for bushfires.
SEPTEMBER 22
Queensland sweltered as the mercury soared to record levels and an “enormous number” of crews remained on bushfire alert.
Temperatures nudged 40C in the north-west, other areas hit the mid-30s, and Brisbane recorded more than 32C as the conditions that had baked southern states and fanned fire conditions made their presence felt in Queensland.
Among the hottest places were Julia Creek in the north-west, at 39.3C and Winton in the central west at 39.1C, while parts of southern and Central Queensland went as high as the mid-30s.
Ninety vehicles and 17 aircraft were fighting fires across the state, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services state co-ordinator Simon Evans said.
SEPTEMBER 27
A weather expert explained the conditions behind the cloud that formed over a Sunshine Coast bushfire.
As the Beerwah bushfire burned many residents saw a cloud shaped like a mushroom form above the blaze.
The fire at Beerwah near the Bruce Hwy, Mawsons Rd and Roys Rd, started on Sunday, September 17, and continued to burn within containment lines on September 22.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s Harry Clark said the phenomenon was not “overly rare” and happened with “stronger” fires.
OCTOBER 13
Residents in one part of South East Queensland‘s Scenic Rim were warned to seek shelter immediately as a “potentially deadly fire” burnt near Boonah.
Properties between Mt French Rd, Sommers Rd and Frenches Creek Rd, including Schubel Rd were at risk from a fire burning near Mount French Rd.
Queensland Fire and Emergency Services told residents it was too late to leave as “driving now could be deadly.”
OCTOBER 18
Queenslanders were being warned of the dangerous smoke from bushfires as a dozen burnt across the state, with one blaze near Bundaberg likened to armageddon.
With smoke blanketing large parts of the state, doctors were reminding people to be conscious of the toxic gases in the atmosphere that may impact healthy Queenslanders who have no history of respiratory illness or hay fever.
A fire burning at Oyster Creek and Deepwater, near Agnes Water, forced residents to flee their homes.
OCTOBER 22
A water bombing helicopter was dispatched to a Cooktown bushfire as relief crews arrived from the south to fight a Millstream blaze.
The ban on fires across huge swathes of the Far North was imposed in response to hot weather, tinder- dry conditions and established fires on the Atherton Tablelands.
A fire burning south of Millstream on the Atherton Tablelands burnt through a large area of bush in the vicinity of Quimber Creek and a prepare to leave notice was issued for Millstream Parade residents.
OCTOBER 25
A second person died in Queensland’s bushfire emergency as the Western Downs township of Tara was threatened by an out-of-control blaze.
An elderly woman had a cardiac arrest and died while preparing to evacuate her property, while firefighters were assessing properties along Chinchilla-Tara Rd – between Joseph Rd and Timothy Rd – where they located a deceased man near a burnt-out, single-storey structure.
Speaking from a command centre in Dably, Superintendent Wayne Waltisbuhl said it was the worst conditions he had seen in 43 years.
OCTOBER 26
A man whose body was found in Queensland’s fire-ravaged Western Downs was identified, as dry lightning strikes triggered new emergency warning and 16 homes were confirmed destroyed.
Police believed the man found at a Tara property was property owner Ulrich Widawski, however, a forensic examination is required to 100 per cent confirm the identity.
Sixteen homes have been destroyed and two lives lost as firefighters battle out-of-control bushfires fuelled by the “worst conditions in 40 years”.
OCTOBER 29
Firefighters were racing against the clock to bring multiple fires under control before conditions worsened and scorching temperatures were expected to hit Queensland.
More than 20,000ha of land and 41 homes had been lost in a fire that had been raging for days near Tara, on the Western Downs.
Meanwhile exhausted residents on the edge of Landsborough, on the Sunshine Coast, were told to evacuate for the second time in as many days as conditions there worsened.
Residents were later allowed to return.
OCTOBER 29
Queensland faced a day of reckoning with its fire threat, as a nightmare cocktail of high winds and temperatures in the upper 30s threatened to ignite conditions.
With 80 bushfires burning across the state an extreme fire danger was declared in multiple hot spots.
OCTOBER 31
Hero firefighters saved a small town on the Queensland border, as residents sheltered inside their homes after being told they could die if they fled.
Shock footage showed the fire front just metres from homes in the 600-person township of Wallangarra, with people driving vehicles away.
NOVEMBER 1
A large, potentially deadly fire was threatening homes south of Warwick, with residents urged to leave immediately.
QFES issued an emergency warning for residents in Dalveen, The Glen, Silverwood and Cherry Gully.
NOVEMBER 2
A top Queensland firefighter has revealed how he was forced to tell people in the line of the ferocious Wallangarra bushfire to bunker down instead of flee – a tough call that helped saved more than 600 lives and a small rural township.
The NSW border town was just minutes away from devastation when the out of control bushfire approached metres from homes.
NOVEMBER 4
A Queensland weather chaser captured the wild moment a supercell storm whipped up a wall of dust and smoke on the Western Downs.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s Brooke Pagel said the storms provided relief to firefighters and residents fighting the Tara bushfires.
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