Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, it has been a massive weekend for Bushfires NT
as well as the Northern Territory Fire and Rescue Service
right across the Northern Territory, but particularly in the Barkley
region as a huge fire has burnt through more than
nine three hundred square kilometers, with firefighting resources being called
in from South Australia to help battle that blaze.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Now, the fire started last Monday.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
In the Barkley region and has burnt thousands of kilometers
over six days, with several other smaller fires also burning
around Tenant Creek. Now joining me on the line to
tell us a bit more about the situation is Bushfire's
NT Incident Controller Tony Fuller. Good morning to you, Tony.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yeah, Good morning Katie, Tony mate.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
What's the latest in the Barkley region.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Ye.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Look, last night there was a breakout of one of
the containment lines, Cruise a little bit concerned that it
was going to run overnight, so watching act was put
in place for Tennant Creek. That watching act is still
in lace this morning. That however, it didn't run as
far as they anticipated last night. There is a survey
(01:08):
flight up this morning to try and work out exactly
where the fire edge is that it was looking a
little bit more promising this morning, but the Watching Act
will remain in place given that there will be a
lot of smoke over the Stuart Highway and TenneT Creek area.
There's already a lot of smoke in Tenner Creek and
this is just going to add to it. We're expecting
(01:30):
wind changes later in the week to have actually pushed
the smoke from east to west right across the whole
of Tenna Creek.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
So tiny in terms of that watching Act for the
residents of Tenant Creek. Are they sort of all aware
that that is in place, or have authorities had to
go around and notify people what's the situation.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I think they're fairly aware. There's been a lot of smoke,
and they actually had a fire in the middle of
town yesterday where the three water bombers that we got
from Interstate to top up the four water pomis we've
got the station in Darwin. They went to work pretty
much as soon as they were on the ground. They
put to work in Tenner Creek itself. So there would
(02:12):
have been a higher activity that's never been seen before
like that in Tenner Creek yesterday, like I.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Know you guys are so used to dealing with emergency
and so used to dealing with fires, but was it
a pretty frightening situation for the people of Tenant yesterday?
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I imagine it would have been. It was that that
fire wasn't our fire, that was actually more territory foreign
rescue fire. But we were certainly watching it. We have
the feeds into our office from the helicopters back into Darwen,
so we could certainly see the flame and how quickly
it was moving into the suburbs. So it would have
(02:50):
been quite.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Alarming Tony by the sounds of it, you know, based
on what's happened in Tenant, based on what is going
on obviously throughout the whole Barkley region. There is a
law for our fires and bushfires into to try to
contend with. Can you just explain to our listeners how
large and significant the fire is that not the one
that was obviously intenant, but the one that bushfires int
(03:14):
is currently dealing with fits burnt well a huge, huge
amount of land.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Yeah, Look, it's probably over ten and a half thousand
square kilometers. Now, that main fire, which we referred to
as the Epinar fire, yep. The station to the north
front Chili Lay yesterday pretty much contained it moving into
their property. So they did a whole leg the work
(03:42):
over the weekend and cured Osterdam for the amount of
effort they put into stopping it to the north after
across the Berkley. But now we've got the issue of it.
It's probably about two hundred kilometers of active fireline or
fire edge all around this fire that we're monitoring, and
(04:03):
our concerns are that if the eastles do come in
and we can't get the containment lines on the western
edge of that fire, that will move towards the Stuart
Highway and potentially Tenant Creek over the next few days.
So there lots of crews down there, lots of machinery.
There's machinery drawn from across the Anty down end a
(04:25):
Tenant to try and build some containment lines to give
us a couple different locations that we can work from
to put backburns in. And that's part of the reason
we've got to watch an act to data if there
is an opportunity for crews to put some backburns in,
they will today and that will increase the amount of
smoke over Tenant as well.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Tony, what kind of resources and personnel are currently being
utilized to get that fire under control and also keep
everything else under control.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Look in ten At itself, we've got three single engine
air tractors. They're called seats. They hold three thousand liters
of water. They've flown in from Minna State, one from
the top end and two from Anna State. They're not
going to put a fire out, but they certainly will
assist the cruise on the ground in attacking spot overs.
(05:19):
We've got two helicopters down there and we've just sent
a plane down a six wing area I said, down
there to as a spoder and survey flight. We've got
two strike teams coming up from South Australia who should
be here Wednesday Thursday to help the cruise on the
ground and the machinery. I know there's a lot of
(05:43):
machinery that's been dragged around from the all over the
place from Chile station at one stage had five grade
its operating. So we've also got the ADF that should
be arriving in TANet Creek after lunch today. They'll be
bringing down to Large and Greater and their taskings will
(06:03):
be around Tenant Creek itself to shore up any firebreaks
and around the township and any critical infrastructure down there.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
In my time in the territory, and I could be
very wrong. I've been here for quite a while. I
know that you've been here for a very long time
and you've worked in a lot of you know, in
a lot of of frontline jobs. Can you recall the
threat to Tenant Creek arising in this way previously? You know,
when it comes to a fire.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Look, I wasn't in the fires, and we're both getting
a bit longer in the tooth, Toney. Yeah, No, Look,
twenty eleven twelve, there was there's references people can look at,
but we lost about eighty percent of the Northern Territory
to fire and in that over that year period. So
(06:53):
I wasn't in the fire service then, certainly wasn't involved.
But I know back then they did actually bring into
state resources up to assist with those fires. But yeah, yeah,
I haven't had any of the experiences with Tenant Creek
the under track threat like this.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Tell me as well, you know, when it comes to
some of the threat that you've had, particularly when you
talk about that Epinara blaze, is their threat to sort
of property livestock.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
How are things looking at this point?
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Look across the Barkley, we've been told there's about a
million head of cattle. There was a lot of stations
stock biling or keeping their cattle there because they couldn't
export them to Indonesia. That's obviously changed this week, so
I'm sure cattle stations will be looking at moving them
recently soon. But that's just Barkley itself, so a lot
(07:43):
of stations across the territory have large amounts of cattle.
At this stage, we're not aware of any significant losses
other than landscape. I think Telstra lost to tower at
one stage, but that's been fixed, but there is real
potential that that could change. The only other real impact
(08:06):
we've had is to the travelers across the Barkley Highway,
which is you know, we've tried to keep that open
as long as we could, but with the flames the
way they were, we've had to shut it again. Today.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
It is open again today, Tony, Or is it shut
at the moment?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
No, I understand it was open again last night and
it should be open today. I haven't had an updates.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, mate, what is the plan for today, because it
sounds as though it's going to be a massive couple
of days for bushfires in Tea for our Northern Territory
Fire and Rescue Service and also you know with others
coming in from interstate.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
What's the plan for today?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Yeah, Look, there's a number of resources empty Fire Service
putting extra resources into Tenant Creek itself to help with
the emergency response area around there. So I understand there's
about a dozen officers. Some are being flying down and
others that unamable ten hour drive from down the track.
(09:07):
But we're also rotating our staff through as best we can,
and the volunteers and just working with the landholders where
we can to put some containment lines in. There's a
number of plans to put a number of different lines
in so that if one line is breached and we've
got a fallback position to try and keep the fire
(09:29):
from moving in a Westley direction into Tenant Creek and
also the Stuart Highway. I also understand that Transport are
looking at plans if they do have to shut the
Stuart Highway, but that's worst case scenario, so we just
making sure we're putting plans in place that if that happens,
(09:50):
then we'll have a capability to do that at short notice.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
It's certainly an evolving situation. How are things looking today?
Are you what are you expecting weather wise for today?
In the next couple of days. Are we going to.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
See some respite at sometime soon?
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I wish no. And for the next couple of days
we're going to have very similar conditions until later in
the week when we're expecting the winds to change to
it eastick, which is actually worse for us.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Oh mate, it is tough going. It is incredibly tough going.
And then you know that's obviously in Central Australia and
in the Barkley region. Is there anything of concern for
the top end at this point in time or are
we sort of seeing things calm down slightly in the
top end at the moment.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Look, we're in a fireban today and I'm not sure
we'll get later. We'll got a weather update later today
to whether or not we have to have another one tomorrow.
But you know, it's continual firebands. At the moment, it's
been a regular thing. We've been pretty fortunate that we
haven't had any significant in the top end in the
last few days where we've had to make sure that
(10:59):
we keep reading sources in the Top end for that eventuality,
and that's why we had to bring planes from in
the state. We didn't want to move to the four planes
and the two helicopters that we've got up here away
from Darwin Well the top end region because we don't
know when we'll need those resources.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
And volunteer wise, i mean, have you got plenty of volunteers?
Have you got plenty of I'm assuming it's all hands
on deck in Tenant Creek and in the Barkley at
the moment.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Yeah. Normally we don't have a bushfire presence in TenneT Creek,
so there is one today, there's a whole lever volunteers,
and there's about five or six of our staff members
in TANet Creek itself. But the volleys have been really good.
We've put a call out and some of them have
taken time off work and they have gone down there,
(11:48):
and we've been rotating those through so we don't burn
them out because obviously we've still got the top end
and our springs regions to keep iron as well, so
we're rotating them through and getting the amount on the
fire ground antenna.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Well, Tony Fuller, there is no doubt it's going to
be tough conditions over the next couple of days. You know,
all the best to your cruise, all the best to
all the fire and rescue service crews and everybody out
there that's battling those fires. By the sounds of it,
we'll probably be catching up with you again tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Yeah, Look, just a shout out to there's a lot
of people supporting bush fires the moment, the Bureau Meuterlogy
that Transport, Catleman's Association, the Land Council. There's a lot
of people working behind scenes on this. Obviously, our Lord
of Terriforic Fire and the Anti Police have set up
(12:42):
a coordination center in Allo Springs has been run since
last Friday as well. So it's just not our agency.
There's a lot of agencies working on this one.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
No good stuff, and that is what we do see
when something happens in the territory, everybody pulls together and
works bloody hard to try and look out for each other.
So Fuller really appreciate you having a chat with us
this morning, and we'll probably catch up with you again tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Powers. Thanks very much.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Thanks mate.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
That is Tony Fuller there, who is indeed well he's
with Bushfires NTS, the incident controller and I tell you
what it sounds like. It is it's pretty critical time
at the moment in central Australia, will in the Barkley
region and indeed in Tenant Creek
Well, it has been a massive weekend for Bushfires NT
as well as the Northern Territory Fire and Rescue Service
right across the Northern Territory, but particularly in the Barkley
region as a huge fire has burnt through more than
nine three hundred square kilometers, with firefighting resources being called
in from South Australia to help battle that blaze.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Now, the fire started last Monday.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
In the Barkley region and has burnt thousands of kilometers
over six days, with several other smaller fires also burning
around Tenant Creek. Now joining me on the line to
tell us a bit more about the situation is Bushfire's
NT Incident Controller Tony Fuller. Good morning to you, Tony.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yeah, Good morning Katie, Tony mate.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
What's the latest in the Barkley region.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Ye.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Look, last night there was a breakout of one of
the containment lines, Cruise a little bit concerned that it
was going to run overnight, so watching act was put
in place for Tennant Creek. That watching act is still
in lace this morning. That however, it didn't run as
far as they anticipated last night. There is a survey
(01:08):
flight up this morning to try and work out exactly
where the fire edge is that it was looking a
little bit more promising this morning, but the Watching Act
will remain in place given that there will be a
lot of smoke over the Stuart Highway and TenneT Creek area.
There's already a lot of smoke in Tenner Creek and
this is just going to add to it. We're expecting
(01:30):
wind changes later in the week to have actually pushed
the smoke from east to west right across the whole
of Tenna Creek.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
So tiny in terms of that watching Act for the
residents of Tenant Creek. Are they sort of all aware
that that is in place, or have authorities had to
go around and notify people what's the situation.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I think they're fairly aware. There's been a lot of smoke,
and they actually had a fire in the middle of
town yesterday where the three water bombers that we got
from Interstate to top up the four water pomis we've
got the station in Darwin. They went to work pretty
much as soon as they were on the ground. They
put to work in Tenner Creek itself. So there would
(02:12):
have been a higher activity that's never been seen before
like that in Tenner Creek yesterday, like I.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Know you guys are so used to dealing with emergency
and so used to dealing with fires, but was it
a pretty frightening situation for the people of Tenant yesterday?
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I imagine it would have been. It was that that
fire wasn't our fire, that was actually more territory foreign
rescue fire. But we were certainly watching it. We have
the feeds into our office from the helicopters back into Darwen,
so we could certainly see the flame and how quickly
it was moving into the suburbs. So it would have
(02:50):
been quite.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Alarming Tony by the sounds of it, you know, based
on what's happened in Tenant, based on what is going
on obviously throughout the whole Barkley region. There is a
law for our fires and bushfires into to try to
contend with. Can you just explain to our listeners how
large and significant the fire is that not the one
that was obviously intenant, but the one that bushfires int
(03:14):
is currently dealing with fits burnt well a huge, huge
amount of land.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Yeah, Look, it's probably over ten and a half thousand
square kilometers. Now, that main fire, which we referred to
as the Epinar fire, yep. The station to the north
front Chili Lay yesterday pretty much contained it moving into
their property. So they did a whole leg the work
(03:42):
over the weekend and cured Osterdam for the amount of
effort they put into stopping it to the north after
across the Berkley. But now we've got the issue of it.
It's probably about two hundred kilometers of active fireline or
fire edge all around this fire that we're monitoring, and
(04:03):
our concerns are that if the eastles do come in
and we can't get the containment lines on the western
edge of that fire, that will move towards the Stuart
Highway and potentially Tenant Creek over the next few days.
So there lots of crews down there, lots of machinery.
There's machinery drawn from across the Anty down end a
(04:25):
Tenant to try and build some containment lines to give
us a couple different locations that we can work from
to put backburns in. And that's part of the reason
we've got to watch an act to data if there
is an opportunity for crews to put some backburns in,
they will today and that will increase the amount of
smoke over Tenant as well.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Tony, what kind of resources and personnel are currently being
utilized to get that fire under control and also keep
everything else under control.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Look in ten At itself, we've got three single engine
air tractors. They're called seats. They hold three thousand liters
of water. They've flown in from Minna State, one from
the top end and two from Anna State. They're not
going to put a fire out, but they certainly will
assist the cruise on the ground in attacking spot overs.
(05:19):
We've got two helicopters down there and we've just sent
a plane down a six wing area I said, down
there to as a spoder and survey flight. We've got
two strike teams coming up from South Australia who should
be here Wednesday Thursday to help the cruise on the
ground and the machinery. I know there's a lot of
(05:43):
machinery that's been dragged around from the all over the
place from Chile station at one stage had five grade
its operating. So we've also got the ADF that should
be arriving in TANet Creek after lunch today. They'll be
bringing down to Large and Greater and their taskings will
(06:03):
be around Tenant Creek itself to shore up any firebreaks
and around the township and any critical infrastructure down there.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
In my time in the territory, and I could be
very wrong. I've been here for quite a while. I
know that you've been here for a very long time
and you've worked in a lot of you know, in
a lot of of frontline jobs. Can you recall the
threat to Tenant Creek arising in this way previously? You know,
when it comes to a fire.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Look, I wasn't in the fires, and we're both getting
a bit longer in the tooth, Toney. Yeah, No, Look,
twenty eleven twelve, there was there's references people can look at,
but we lost about eighty percent of the Northern Territory
to fire and in that over that year period. So
(06:53):
I wasn't in the fire service then, certainly wasn't involved.
But I know back then they did actually bring into
state resources up to assist with those fires. But yeah, yeah,
I haven't had any of the experiences with Tenant Creek
the under track threat like this.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Tell me as well, you know, when it comes to
some of the threat that you've had, particularly when you
talk about that Epinara blaze, is their threat to sort
of property livestock.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
How are things looking at this point?
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Look across the Barkley, we've been told there's about a
million head of cattle. There was a lot of stations
stock biling or keeping their cattle there because they couldn't
export them to Indonesia. That's obviously changed this week, so
I'm sure cattle stations will be looking at moving them
recently soon. But that's just Barkley itself, so a lot
(07:43):
of stations across the territory have large amounts of cattle.
At this stage, we're not aware of any significant losses
other than landscape. I think Telstra lost to tower at
one stage, but that's been fixed, but there is real
potential that that could change. The only other real impact
(08:06):
we've had is to the travelers across the Barkley Highway,
which is you know, we've tried to keep that open
as long as we could, but with the flames the
way they were, we've had to shut it again. Today.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
It is open again today, Tony, Or is it shut
at the moment?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
No, I understand it was open again last night and
it should be open today. I haven't had an updates.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, mate, what is the plan for today, because it
sounds as though it's going to be a massive couple
of days for bushfires in Tea for our Northern Territory
Fire and Rescue Service and also you know with others
coming in from interstate.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
What's the plan for today?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Yeah, Look, there's a number of resources empty Fire Service
putting extra resources into Tenant Creek itself to help with
the emergency response area around there. So I understand there's
about a dozen officers. Some are being flying down and
others that unamable ten hour drive from down the track.
(09:07):
But we're also rotating our staff through as best we can,
and the volunteers and just working with the landholders where
we can to put some containment lines in. There's a
number of plans to put a number of different lines
in so that if one line is breached and we've
got a fallback position to try and keep the fire
(09:29):
from moving in a Westley direction into Tenant Creek and
also the Stuart Highway. I also understand that Transport are
looking at plans if they do have to shut the
Stuart Highway, but that's worst case scenario, so we just
making sure we're putting plans in place that if that happens,
(09:50):
then we'll have a capability to do that at short notice.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
It's certainly an evolving situation. How are things looking today?
Are you what are you expecting weather wise for today?
In the next couple of days. Are we going to.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
See some respite at sometime soon?
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I wish no. And for the next couple of days
we're going to have very similar conditions until later in
the week when we're expecting the winds to change to
it eastick, which is actually worse for us.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Oh mate, it is tough going. It is incredibly tough going.
And then you know that's obviously in Central Australia and
in the Barkley region. Is there anything of concern for
the top end at this point in time or are
we sort of seeing things calm down slightly in the
top end at the moment.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Look, we're in a fireban today and I'm not sure
we'll get later. We'll got a weather update later today
to whether or not we have to have another one tomorrow.
But you know, it's continual firebands. At the moment, it's
been a regular thing. We've been pretty fortunate that we
haven't had any significant in the top end in the
last few days where we've had to make sure that
(10:59):
we keep reading sources in the Top end for that eventuality,
and that's why we had to bring planes from in
the state. We didn't want to move to the four planes
and the two helicopters that we've got up here away
from Darwin Well the top end region because we don't
know when we'll need those resources.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
And volunteer wise, i mean, have you got plenty of volunteers?
Have you got plenty of I'm assuming it's all hands
on deck in Tenant Creek and in the Barkley at
the moment.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Yeah. Normally we don't have a bushfire presence in TenneT Creek,
so there is one today, there's a whole lever volunteers,
and there's about five or six of our staff members
in TANet Creek itself. But the volleys have been really good.
We've put a call out and some of them have
taken time off work and they have gone down there,
(11:48):
and we've been rotating those through so we don't burn
them out because obviously we've still got the top end
and our springs regions to keep iron as well, so
we're rotating them through and getting the amount on the
fire ground antenna.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Well, Tony Fuller, there is no doubt it's going to
be tough conditions over the next couple of days. You know,
all the best to your cruise, all the best to
all the fire and rescue service crews and everybody out
there that's battling those fires. By the sounds of it,
we'll probably be catching up with you again tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Yeah, Look, just a shout out to there's a lot
of people supporting bush fires the moment, the Bureau Meuterlogy
that Transport, Catleman's Association, the Land Council. There's a lot
of people working behind scenes on this. Obviously, our Lord
of Terriforic Fire and the Anti Police have set up
(12:42):
a coordination center in Allo Springs has been run since
last Friday as well. So it's just not our agency.
There's a lot of agencies working on this one.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
No good stuff, and that is what we do see
when something happens in the territory, everybody pulls together and
works bloody hard to try and look out for each other.
So Fuller really appreciate you having a chat with us
this morning, and we'll probably catch up with you again tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Powers. Thanks very much.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Thanks mate.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
That is Tony Fuller there, who is indeed well he's
with Bushfires NTS, the incident controller and I tell you
what it sounds like. It is it's pretty critical time
at the moment in central Australia, will in the Barkley
region and indeed in Tenant Creek
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