Farmer Angela Bond faces anxious wait as fire creeps closer to family farm at Judbury in Huon Valley

If the Riveaux Rd fire makes it into Judbury, there’s a fair bet that Ange Bond will be one of the first to know about it.

IF the Riveaux Rd fire makes it into Judbury, there’s a fair bet that Ange Bond will be one of the first to know about it.

A firefighter at Geeveston Fire Station looking at the red sun as it goes down. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

Ms Bond and her parents, Bruce and Evelyn, have hunkered down to defend their property against the fire which is burning in the hills just across the Huon River.

At most, it is 3km away and creeping closer. At night the sky glows orange.

Ms Bond and her father were out on Wednesday tending to the irrigators, powered by diesel pumps, spraying the open ground at their farm with water from a nearby creek.

Their careful preparations have left a patch of greening grass amid the brown fields which will help their chances if the fire comes out of the hills.

Despite their confidence in their preparation, it has been an anxious wait, keeping an eye on the wind and hoping it doesn’t turn against them. It was calm early in the day, but visibility was low.

“It’s a little bit spooky when the smoke comes in like this,” Ms Bond said.

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Judbury farmer Angela Bond using an irrigator to water paddocks surrounding her family's property. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

“Were getting a lot of smoke from the Gell River fire. You feel a bit surrounded when it’s like that.”

As if the fire was not enough, residents of the area have been dealing with intermittent power,

water and NBN outages.

Fire in Judbury from a blaze that started further south at Riveaux Rd. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

The family has been in the area for generations and knows well the threat of fire and the local quirks — like the valley floor winds that could funnel the threat from an unexpected direction.

Ms Bond said they would be sitting tight.

“We know it has got the capacity to jump the river easily — so it is not a line of defence for us,” she said.

“We can do a fair bit here. We’re probably at risk from ember attack tomorrow. Whether is comes to that we don’t know. So far we haven’t copped it as badly as the people at Glen Huon.

“The good thing is that if it gets here we will be fighting a grass fire.”

Even once the fires pass, which could be weeks, Ange Bond says their impact will be lasting in the Huon Valley.

“The economy out here will suffer a lot form these fires. There’s the airwalk, the mill, and the massive loss of timber that was yet to be harvested.”

For the latest fire information, go to the Tasmania Fire Service website.