Water bombers battle to contain Fraser Island inferno

Tonnes of sea water are being dumped on a fire burning on Fraser Island to try to keep the flames from destroying rainforests.

A water-bombing aircraft tries to douse a fire burning on Fraser Island.

Firefighters battling a mammoth blaze on World Heritage-listed Fraser Island are using large air bombers laden with sea water to try to keep the flames out of key areas such as the Valley of the ­Giants rainforest.

The fire started on October 14 after an illegally lit campfire was not extinguished. Since then, the blaze has spread over 76,000 hectares, or 40 per cent of the island.

Campers have been ordered to stay away, and Kingfisher Bay Resort evacuated its guests on Monday and announced that it would close until December 14.

Incident controller James Haigh of Queensland Fire and Emergency Services said extremely dry and windy conditions were hampering the efforts of the firefighters.

“It’s very difficult to contain when conditions are this dry, and similarly we don’t want to do any activities that will cause more ­environmental damage than the fire,” Superintendent Haigh said.

“We’re not cutting great swathes across the island with bulldozers to try to pull it up.”

He said the fire was burning on two main fronts: on the western side near Kingfisher Bay Resort; and on the eastern side near an area known as the Cathedrals.

A large number of resources were being used in the battle, including aircraft capable of carrying thousands of litres of water and fire retardant.

In one day, more than 250,000 litres had been dumped on the flames, which amounted to a “heck of a lot of air drops”, Superintendent Haigh said.

Fraser Coast deputy mayor Darren Everard said there was plenty of community anger about how the fire had started, and he appealed to campers to use care and obey all fire bans.