Hinterland bushfires: Ten homes burnt to the ground
Authorities have this morning confirmed that ten homes have been lost in bushfires raging in the Gold Coast hinterland, with residents forced to flee for their lives.
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AUTHORITIES have this morning confirmed that ten homes were lost as a fierce bushfire ripped through the Gold Coast hinterland.
Families fled for their lives as the fire ravaged parts of Beechmont and Binna Burra.
A Tabletop Road home was the first to be destroyed by the fire, with a family lucky to escape with their lives, running into their dam before they were winched to the safety of a rescue helicopter.
Evacuees arriving by rescue chopper at #canungra as blaze continues @GCBulletin pic.twitter.com/RxAoHS6wED
— Kirstin Payne (@kpayneoz) September 6, 2019
The group of two men and a woman clutched just a handful of possessions as they exited the helicopter at the Canungra Showgrounds.
In shock the family only had praise for their rescuers, “they rescued us,” the woman said pointing to the firefighters. “They were amazing.”
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The fire that started as a vegetation fire on Monday near Reining Road has now spread to a 40km fire perimeter was being spurred on by strong north westerly winds, with conditions expected to turn overnight, to a more westerly winds.
The fire has now spread into Lamington National Park.
Last night the Army was partially evacuating the Kokoda Barracks in Canungra. It’s understood non-essential personnel and their families left the base.
Queensland Rural Fire Service regional manager Superintendent Alan Gillespie said a focus overnight was making sure the blaze did not jump Nerang Murwillumbah Rd.
“The fire at Sarabah has spread, as we expected it do, under some pretty difficult fire weather conditions,” Supt Gillespie said.
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“I can confirm we have lost one house, but we have saved numerous others and we were able to successfully winch a family to safety, who were trapped by the fire … they evacuated to their dam and we winched them out of there.
“In terms of our objectives for the day, in terms of saving lives, a big tick for us and only one house being lost through the day, that’s incredible.”
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Spot fires were seen up to 3kms from the main front, with windy conditions making fighting the inferno extremely difficult.
“We are now concerned the fire will potentially spot over as far Nerang Murwillumbah Road, as such we have trucks patrolling that area.
“The fire is now significantly bigger, at the end of the day if you go from Nerang Murwillumbah Road to the township of Canungra, that’s a huge area.
“The fire perimeter is probably in the order of 40kms, it was 28kms (Friday) morning.”
Supt Gillespie said conditions were still going to be tricky throughout today.
“We will be gearing up again (this morning), we expect the fire to continue under a westerly influence.
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“We are expecting the fire to burn for several days yet, we will get a respite on Sunday, but it will be back into it on Monday, in terms of weather.
“Beechmont, we believe the fire, under the westerly direction, is reasonably safe, but people need to be careful.
“Numinbah is a different kettle of fish, we are putting appliances on that Nerang Murwillumbah Rd, we have a couple in the correctional facility just in case, we’re going to do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t jump over that road, otherwise it might end up in Springbrook.
“We’ve made the decision not to do that (evacuate the correctional centre), it’s a difficult thing, but we believe it’s quite defendable.”
He said people in the area need to listen to the fire safety message and take all instructions and warnings seriously.
“We have been hammering this home, people who live in the bush need to have been prepared days ago, we’ve been telling people about this.
“We had a number of people leave their homes, people are doing what we ask them to do, but this is an absolute timely reminder, we’ve only just started the fire season and this is unprecedented, we’ve still got to get through to Christmas yet and there’s no rain in site.
“People need to have a good fire survival plan and to prepare their properties.
“The proof is in the pudding, we said that this would happen and it is, they needed to be prepared, it’s not going to be as bad (today), as it was (yesterday), it’s still going to be quite a challenging day for us.
“Sunday we are going to try and get back on top of this, but Monday we’ll be back into it with the trying conditions, there’s no space for complacency in this.”
There is little relief in sight with Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Harry Clark predicting just a “slight” reduction in fire danger over the weekend.
“We’re not expecting any rainfall in the next seven days at least over Queensland,” he said.
“We will see the warm temperatures abate however we will still see the dry and really gusty conditions.
“The fire dangers will drop back to very high across most districts but it will still going to be hard to control these fires, while conditions will ease slightly, we’re not expecting a full reprieve.
“This whole event is quite unusual for this early in the year, usually we start to see significant fire dangers in the latter part of September and into spring.”
Keep up to date on the fire at goldcoastbulletin.com.au
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