Queensland fire emergency: Brisbane, Gold Coast, Ipswich residents told to stay indoors due to smoke hazard

More than three million people have been told to stay indoors as thick smoke engulfs southeast Queensland.

A visitor to the Mt Coottha lookout looks on as smoke haze blankets central Brisbane. Picture: AAP

More than three million people in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Ipswich have been told to stay indoors as bushfire smoke wreathed the southeast Queensland population hubs, creating an “unprecedented” health hazard.

The state’s Chief Health Officer, Jeannette Young, said people should consider the consequences of being outside after air quality dipped to potentially harmful levels.

Her intervention came as firefighters battling dozens of blazes from the NSW border to central Queensland braced for searing conditions on Wednesday, ramping up the risk in tinder dry, drought-stricken reaches of the state.

With the threat on the Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane easing after a weekend emergency forced the evacuation of 4000 people, the focus on Monday was the Cobraball fire threatening communities north of Rockhampton in central Queensland. Three homes and 13 other sheds or residential structures have been lost there.

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Describing the air deterioration in the state capital, Ipswich to the west and the Gold Coast as “quite unprecedented”, Dr Young said hospitals had reported an influx of patients in respiratory distress.

People with normal lung function could manage short bursts of low air quality, but with the smoke expected to linger for at least another day, it was important everyone considered the risk.

“Yesterday the air quality was poor across a lot of Queensland. It is now at a very poor level,” Dr Young said.

“There are other parts of the state that also have poor quality but the air quality here now in Brisbane and the Gold Coast and Ipswich is at a level that I am recommending if you can stay indoors, that’s what you should be doing.

“That’s the trigger for when I believe it’s important to start advising everyone to consider the health consequences of being outside. We know that for the next 24 to 48 hours and probably longer than that we are going to see very poor air quality.”

Dr Young said people should avoid vigorous exercise or physical exertion in the open, and schools had been instructed to minimise outdoor activity for students. She spoke out after the air quality index maintained by the state Department of Environment and Science fell from poor to very poor, with a numerical rating of more than 150, against 0-33 for very good air quality.

Temperatures will surge into the mid to high 30Cs by Wednesday, pushing the fire risk to severe in many parts of the state. Dry northerly and northwesterly winds will gust up to 50km/hr from Tuesday, the Bureau of Meteorology warned.

The Darling Downs and Granite Belt in the southwest would be impacted first, with the dangerous conditions extending to Ipswich, Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, then northward as the week wore on.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has declared a historic state of fire emergency across 42 of Queensland’s 77 local government areas, one of many “firsts” in a fire season that has affected areas never before known to burn extensively.

The Sunshine Coast, which is in the frame again as conditions deteriorate, has endured four emergency-level blazes in the past two months, horrifying locals more used to dealing with floods than dangerous bushfires.

Residents at Rosevale, southwest of Ipswich, and Thornton in the Lockyer Valley were on watch and act alert late Monday, with the Queensland Fire and Emergency Service warning conditions could rapidly worsen and they should prepare to leave.