Combined efforts battle blaze
Published Date: 11 Jan 2013
Summary
Cootamundra Herald
FIREFIGHERS from throughout the South West Slopes Zone, including Cootamundra, rushed to battle a bushfire that broke out east of Jugiong on Tuesday afternoon and burnt out some 12,000 hectares.
During the week there were more than 130 bushfires in the state with thousands of sheep and cattle being lost. State-wide some 2000 firefighters were involved in fighting the fires.With record temperatures, and driven by hot searing winds, the fire quickly became the largest fire burning in NSW at the time.
Rural fire brigades from Cootamundra, Wallendbeen, Frampton, Stockinbingal and Brawlin as well as crews from Young, Harden, Boorowa, Yass and Goulburn were all involved in fighting the blaze.
Efforts to control the fire when it first started were directed from the NSW Rural Fire Services' Harden Fire Control Centre. Control of the fire has now been handed over to the Yass Fire Control Centre and they are continuing to strengthen containment lines in an attempt to contain the fire.
The fire started at about 4pm on Tuesday near the Bald Hill Quarry on Benangaroo Road and quickly raced into the hills, heading towards Burrinjuck and Yass before it was controlled stopped some 10 kilometres from Yass.
The fire's perimeter stretched for some 94 kilometres.
As of yesterday afternoon firefighters were still controlling the blaze attempting to bring it under control ahead of the predicted return of high temperatures today and over the weekend.
Firefighters were aided in their fight on Wednesday when a cool change came through the area. In Cootamundra the maximum temperature reached 40.4 on Tuesday and dropped to 25.2 on Wednesday.
In response to the fire, NSW premier Barry O'Farrell announced yesterday that all local government areas in Burrinjuck were eligible for Natural Disaster Assistance.
Welcoming the announcement, Member for Burrinjuck Katrina Hodgkinson said that despite weather conditions reaching the 'catastrophic' classification on Tuesday in some areas, the Burrinjuck electorate had been extremely fortunate to not sustain much greater damage from the fire.
"This is mainly due to the fantastic efforts of our volunteer fire fighters, ably assisted by Fire and Rescue NSW and the pre-emptive planning put in place by the NSW government and the Rural Fire Service," she said.
"While thankfully there has been no loss of life, many property owners have suffered significant damage and the natural disaster assistance measures will help them recover from the fires."
Ms Hodgkinson said back burning operations would continue through the night as firefighters braced themselves for another hot weekend.
"The total damage bill has yet to be assessed but it will be even greater with the loss of farm infrastructure including fencing, shearing sheds and vehicles," she said.
"As the Minister for Primary Industries, and coming from a family of sheep producers, who has lived with the threat and impact of bushfires my whole life, I know how difficult it will be to recover from this disaster."
She said that through their efforts no lives or houses had been lost.A spokeswoman for the NSW Rural Fire Service said the service would like to thank all the firefighters and volunteers who had been working tirelessly to fight the fire.
