NT Fire and Rescue Service Senior Station Officer Keith Hutton says crews and volunteers workers all night to secure properties in Tennant Creek from a large bushfire that broke out on Peko Road yesterday afternoon which comes after multiple fires on the weekend including kids lighting fires on the footy oval

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What we know is that Fire Cruise and volunteers have
been battling several fires in Tenant Creek, with a blaze
on Peako Road reaching Watch and Act level yesterday afternoon.
Cruise also had a challenging weekend battling multiple blazes across
the region. And we know that there was a fast
moving grass fire in the Hobby Farms area at burned
through forty eight hectares on Sunday and it was found

(00:23):
by strong winds and difficult terrain. Now while tackling that,
fire crews were also called to blazers at Mulga Camp
and reports of children lighting fires near the Football Oval.
Senior Station Officer Keith Hutten has praised the dedication of
local volunteers who've clocked over one hundred and fifty hours
protecting the community and he joins me on the line

(00:46):
right now.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Good morning, Keith, Good morning Katie. How are you toking?

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah? Really good. Thanks for joining us this morning on
the show. Keith Ursley, what's the latest on the Peico
Road blaze?

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Oh, look, it's been out and had a drive through
the fireline and the work that the volleys and everyone
did last night has been really effective. It's secured the
properties that are up there. So there's a few people
leaving up in the ranges up there, secured their properties
and it's done a really good job. But if people

(01:19):
look out of the window now, they'll see some pretty
heavy plumes of smoke, but they are burning across the
top of the ranges at the moment.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah, So, Keith, what's it like in ten and at
the moment and surrounds I'm imagining a pretty warm must
be a bit gusty as well.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, the weather's warming up through the week. So we
had a fairly reasonably cool week last week that strong winds.
Then now this week the winds have swung around and
the temperatures increasing, So that's going to continue increasing and
through the weekend and in the next week.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
So with the Peago road blaze, I'm imagining that crews
will probably be back out there today.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Oh, one hundred percent, we'll be back out there. I've
just been out We've burned through about six hundred and
fifty hectares last night, and there's probably I haven't had
a look at the estimate, but there'd be three to
four hundred hectares that are probably going to go up
today as well.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
How challenging are those conditions And you know, talking about
the fact that CRUs have been working last night, no
doubt working, you know, enormous hours to try and deal
with things.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, well last night, so this fi I started around
two pm yesterday. CRUs were alerted to it around a
quarter to three or two thirty three, two thirty and
we worked through to three sorry, two am this morning
securing all those properties. It's yeah, it's incredibly challenging. We've

(02:47):
got there's not a lot, there's not a lot of
members here. We don't have a huge array of resources
to call on. So we had ten volunteers and staff
out there last night, seven appliances, and they work. They
worked tirelessly and now they've most of them have fronted

(03:08):
up to work today as well, so you know they're
backing this up every single day.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Good on them. It's I mean, it is a huge
fat Keith. In terms of I know you mentioned that
there are some properties along that road. In terms of
the work that you guys have done to those properties,
they're all sort of safe at the moment.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, absolutely, they're they're all well and truly safe. The
actions that the cruise did last night burning around those
properties saved literally saved their properties from burning down. Yeah,
with the amount of fuel and the unpredictable wind we've
got weather through this week. It's today and through the

(03:49):
week it's unstable. Increasing fire is through to the weekend
and next week gusty and shifting winds that'll drive the
fires in the afternoon. We've really got to pick our
time and pick our place where we're going to do
these backburds. So at the moment we're out, we're doing
greater work. We've got securing fire breaks around the communities

(04:13):
and it will be out there probably in the next
hour assessing where we're going to start the next next burns.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Keith that the Peak I Road fire is obviously on
top of the Hobby Farms fire on Sunday, it burnt through,
as I understand, about forty eight hectares. Were there any
assets or infrastructure lost, No.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
There was no, There was. There was some car bodies
scattered throughout the bush. There was one shed as in
an old stable, but it had been well abandoned. The
fire burnt through there just's it was undefendable. Just with
the amount of fuel load that was around it. But yeah,

(04:57):
that was that was all expected. It wasn't unexpected. The
land that had burnt out was heavy fuel. We stopped it,
stopped it on the borders. We had some good brakes
in place that we could work off. And that's so
important that landholders take care of their firebreaks, make sure
we've got good access around their properties because when we

(05:21):
come out, we don't have time cut fences and find
alternate routes.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
Hey, now, in terms of my understanding is that at
the same time that you're dealing with that fire, you're
also called at Mulga Camp on the other side of town.
I mean, by the sounds of what you said earlier,
it would have stretched your resources, there is no doubt.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, So when we get multiple calls on that we've
got a triage, what our priority is at that stage.
Police had actually notified us that there was a fire there.
They weren't concerned about. It was burning in low grass
and burning slow. There was low wind at at that location,

(06:05):
so there was no real concerns, nothing threatened. So we
took the option we delayed our response to them till
I could release a resource, and as soon as I could,
I did, and yeah, we extinguished that. Two of the
things happened yesterday as well, with where there was a
fuel spill in town and another fire out near the

(06:26):
airport while we're trying to battle the Pico Road fire.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
Sounds like you guys are busy, there is no doubt,
and it is that time of the year, I suppose,
and I know that you do lots of you know,
I've work to try and make sure that you minimize
the impacts of any of these fires. But then you
also were dispatched two reports of kids lighting fires with
fuel on the footy Oval. I mean, how disappointing is
it when something like this happens and you've got your

(06:52):
hard working crews out there and the impact that it
has on everybody.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, it is. It is really disappointing. Kids are going
to find whatever they can to amuse themselves, and unfortunately
these kids have come up with some fun games of
fire which cause a lot of work and a lot
of risk around the community. Thankfully, it looks like that

(07:19):
was only a that was only a very small incident,
so there was no great damage done, but it did
divert our resources from other jobs.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Keith, I know that the Barkley North and Barkley South
are under a fire danger period. It looks like it's
still the end of October. What is the advice to
the community and landholders?

Speaker 2 (07:41):
But now, well, now's a really good time to make
sure that you've got your fire fire planes in place
or your emergency planes in place. Make sure your fire
breaks are clear, make sure we've got good access around
around your properties. And if you see a fire reported early.

(08:01):
I can't stress enough that how quickly these fires develop,
and how much time it takes to get how volunteers
and not to take themselves away from their family or
their work and make arrangements so they can attend the
fire station. Like you said, there was one hundred and
fifty hours last week that they donated to the community.

(08:22):
Last night we had ten members out there for another
twelve hours, so that was another one hundred and twenty
hours just in the last night over the last twenty
four hours.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
I mean, it sounds like it's busy as how things
looking for today, Keith? Is it looking as though you
could have another really busy day.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeah, the wind starting to pick up. We've had a
weather forecast and it's predicting enhanced fire behavior through the afternoon,
and the atmosphere is fairly unstable, so that's going to
cause a lot of upper level movement when the fire's hot.
Fire that could throw embers a head, so you could

(09:04):
wind up with a bit of spotting ahead of the fire,
which will breach our firebreaks or potential to breach our firebreaks.
The area that's burning at the moment, though, it is
actually heading north, so it's not we're not expecting it
to come back towards town, so there's very limited infrastructure

(09:25):
up there. We can't extinguish it, so what we're try
and do is divert it or steer it into a
burnt patch so it actually burns itself out.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah right, We'll make all the best today to you,
to all the fires and indeed any volunteers out there
working with you guys, and by the sounds of it,
we might catch up with you again overcoming days, depending
on how things are going.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
No worries, thanks, I just want to shout out to
the community. Chout out to the community for all their
efforts yesterday or working with those landholders last night burning
around their but it's very very close to their properties
and they are very accommodating. I really appreciate everything that
they do.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah, good stuff, well, Keith, good on you guys, and
plenty of hard work ahead of you, I know. ANDT
Fire and Rescue Service Senior Station Officer, Keith Hutton, thanks
so much for having a chat with us this morning.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Thanks Coatie, thank you.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
Sounds good.