Rain relieves bushfire pain but many blazes remain active across Tasmania
UPDATED: The Huon Highway south of Huonville has reopened to all travellers after being declared safe, but several smaller roads leading to burnt areas remain closed.
Tasmania
Don't miss out on the headlines from Tasmania. Followed categories will be added to My News.
UPDATED: THE Huon Highway south of Huonville has reopened to all travellers this morning after being declared safe.
Restrictions have also been lifted on Glen Huon Road but several smaller roads leading to burnt areas remain closed.
Tasmania Police warned further road closures may occur, with the bushfire threat not over.
Temporary speed limit changes are likely to remain in place in some areas.
“While the Southern Regional Emergency Management Committee is making every effort to ensure roads that are open are safe and that warning signs are posted on roads yet to be assessed, the public is asked to take personal responsibility if choosing to drive in areas affected by bushfires,” regional controller Tony Cerritelli said.
“We cannot say that any road is 100 per cent safe, even when these roads have been opened to the general public.”
Potential safety risks include fire, electrical or infrastructure damage, trees with potential to fall, burnt and partially burnt trees and obstructions, or dangerous conditions from smoke, debris or escaped animals.
EARLIER: FIRE crews will continue to take advantage of milder conditions today after a relatively quiet night around the state.
In a statement shortly before 9.30am, the Tasmania Fire Service said fire behaviour overnight at Great Pine Tier, Gell River, Riveaux Road and Britton Swamp was low.
There were no reports of fire breaking out from existing containment lines.
The TFS said work will continue today on impact assessments and identifying dangerous trees, and crews will patrol fire edges on foot or by vehicle, where conditions allow access.
“Planning continues to assess the feasibility of back burning operations to bring identified areas of the fire edge out to containment lines,” the TFS said.
“Where flying conditions allow, aircraft will assist with mapping, water bombing and crew insertions to identify hot spots and black out edges.”
Twelve fires around the state remain at advice level, according to the TFS website.
For information on steps you can take on returning to your property after a fire, go to the TasALERTS website.
EARLIER: A DOWNPOUR of rain brought relief for fire crews battling blazes across the state yesterday, but Tasmanians are being warned to remain vigilant.
Tasmania Fire Service operations officer Mark Dobson said most areas where there was active fire landscape received above 20mm of rain.
The fire-affected town of Geeveston welcomed 32.8mm, while Miena received 17.6mm.
“That will certainly quiet the fires down, but it’s not going to extinguish them,” Mr Dobson said.
“The rain is certainly welcomed by all the crews out on the ground, and of course those in the incident management team as well, but it’s certainly not over by any stretch of the imagination.”
“The message to the public is to absolutely remain vigilant, even though the conditions are quite mild today and they will be for the next few days, the danger is certainly not over, it’s really just a lull in proceedings.”
Twelve advice alerts remained in place at 5pm last night, and between 10 and 20 fires were still burning in Tasmania.
TFS station officer, state operations, Darren Gye, said it had been a long time since no watch and act alerts were in place.
“Since the lightning [strike] band came through on the 15th of January, I would say it’s a reasonably safe bet that we have had a watch and act on one pretty much continuously for one fire or another since then,” Mr Gye said.
At the Riveaux Rd fire in the Huon Valley, the rain allowed some crews to be released to undertake impact assessments and assess fire-affected roads for dangerous trees and other hazards. Where appropriate, unsafe trees were felled and roads cleared. Other fire crews maintained patrolling and reported that fire activity was reasonably low.
At the Great Pine Tier in the Central Plateau, remote area firefighters walked prioritised sections of the northern edges of the fire from Great Lake to Lake Augusta, identifying and extinguishing hot spots.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s Michael Laczko said more mild weather was on the way, with a weak cold front was expected to move across the state overnight last night.
“We are expecting from Friday until next Thursday a generally west to south-westerly air stream across Tasmania, with a sequence of embedded cold fronts,” Mr Laczko said.
“This is going to mean showers are possible in most areas over those seven days, but more likely in the west, the far south, and through Bass Strait.”
Mr Dobson said it was likely the TFS would still be fighting some of the fires into March.
“We’re expecting the weather to warm back up again, and certainly by the end of summer we’ll have some more days up above 30C with some lower humidity and stronger winds, so we’re definitely not out of the woods,” he said.
MORE TASSIE NEWS
CANBERRA CALLED ON TO PROTECT RARE HANDFISH
NEW THEATRE FESTIVAL ATTRACTS BIG NAMES TO TASSIE
RAIN BRINGS MASSIVE RELEASE OF TENSION
O’Byrne pulls plug on support for Ferguson, says Premier must act
The survival of key Liberal Michael Ferguson hangs by a thread after key independent David O’Byrne declared he had lost confidence in the beleaguered Treasurer and Deputy Premier. What Mr O’Byrne said >>
World-leading program which has reduced dementia risk by 25%
A five-year dementia study run out of UTAS is showing drops of 25 per cent in the dementia risk of its study participants. Here is what they are doing to stay healthier for longer.