Volunteer firefighters praised as isolated community planned to honk horns and run to water as fire raged
A Tasmanian holiday town faces potential catastrophe as residents devised desperate escape plans to flee into the bay while volunteer firefighters battle blazes through the night.
A part time resident has said the community of Steiglitz has come together during a difficult time, preparing to “launch boats” and jump “into the bay” if fire took hold of the holiday destination on Wednesday.
The plan followed emergency evacuation warnings by the Tasmania Fire Service on Tuesday night and again on Wednesday morning. It has since been downgraded to Watch and Act advice to residents.
There are reports that two houses have been lost in the fire.
Paul Worsteling, a holiday maker originally from Victoria, has been coming to his treasured holiday shack for more than 25 years.
“We come down here every opportunity we get because we just love the fishing, the community and the more relaxed lifestyle,” Mr Worsteling said.
Speaking to the Mercury while charging his phone in the only available port which was in his car, several helicopters could be heard hovering over the town.
“There are three helicopters going non-stop having a crack,” he said.
“What were flames before, look more like smouldering now, so fingers crossed.”
He explained that police knocked on the door of every house on the street, which was a difficult task given many of the properties are owned by holiday makers who aren’t currently in Steiglitz.
“All the people who are here are working together, we helped let police know who is there and who is not.” he said.
Mr Worsteling explained that the town planned to escape to the waterfront if conditions turned dire.
“We can’t get off the peninsula and the roads are closed, everyone has parked their boats, cars and anything of value down by the waterfront,”
He said that the town had come up with a plan in the event of a worst-case scenario to “launch boats and leave cars on the water’s edge and just go into the bay,”
“If the fire were to come and nail a few houses we can all just run straight down the water.” he said.
Despite the detailed escape plan, on Wednesday morning Mr Worsteling said that he was feeling good about the condition of the blaze.
“For the first time in 12 hours, I feel like things are looking pretty damn good,” he said.
Emergency responders on scene had been battling the blaze throughout the night.
Some volunteer firefighters were FIFO workers who had jumped on a plane and drove straight to Steiglitz.
“They decided to risk their lives fighting fires to save our houses,”
“I cannot tell you how overwhelmed you are when strangers on the street at 2am are sucking down a Sprite in three seconds because their throats are so dry from being out there all night on the front lines.”
He explained that many of the volunteer firefighters are people with regular jobs.
“Seeing that has been the most incredible thing,” he said.
The community of Steiglitz created a warning signal overnight in case fire started to spread when people were sleeping.
“We all had a plan because we had no power,” said Mr Worsteling.
“If things turned bad as many of us as possible would jump into the car and start honking our horns, just so everyone would have that signal.”
Break O’Day Council Mayor, Mick Tucker, said that the only reason the community has been so well supported has been because of the “significant contributions from volunteers”.
“The good will within the community has been amazing,”
“Hundreds of people have come through the evacuation centre or are staying next door with our navy cadets.” he said.
He confirmed that there were over 800 properties still without power.
“It will be a lot of work and manpower to clean things up once the fires are done.” Mayor Tucker said.
The evacuation centre is located within the Bendigo Bank Community Stadium on 117 Tully Street, St Helens.
Tasmanian Fire Service Incident Controller David Casteller said that the weather is “favourable” for the rest of Wednesday.
“The crews faced really challenging conditions last night, the wind was very strong and erratic.”
He explained that the size of land burnt is around 1,400 hectares and that two houses have been destroyed.
“We’ve also lost some other out buildings and caravans, but considering the conditions that our crews faced last night they have done a fantastic job to limit the damage to just two structures.”
Mr Casteller explained that luckily nobody had been injured.
“The wind coming in from various directions and extent of the fire covering such a large area, stretched needed resources.”
At the height of the fire overnight, over 90 firefighters along with several helicopters were on the scene battling the blaze.
Mr Casteller said it’s still “too early to say” what the cause of the fire is.
“We are going to investigate the cause, our current focus is on containing this fire.”
He confirmed that if the fire is upgraded in severity, there are sufficient resources and crews available to be able to tackle a larger blaze.
As a result of the fire, there has been a request put through for aerial assistance from the mainland
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Originally published as Volunteer firefighters praised as isolated community planned to honk horns and run to water as fire raged
