Plea for more help as threat continues

TASMANIA Fire Service has made another plea for interstate help as crews battle to control an avalanche of bushfires before the weather heats up again.

More than 50 interstate personnel are in Tasmania assisting with the Gell River blaze, including a remote area firefighting team from New South Wales, consisting of 12 specialist firefighters and two paramedics.

A large fixed-wing airtanker from Victoria is also working on the Great Pine Tier fire.

State Fire Controller Bruce Byatt said the TFS had made an additional request for a second remote area firefighting team from interstate to run parallel to the current deployment.

“Fires will continue to be detected and we expect that number to rise,” he said.

“We’ll have that requirement for interstate assistance going for a number of weeks yet.”

He said the remote area team had done an incredibly good job under difficult conditions.

Bureau of Meteorology Tasmania acting state manager Simon McCulloch said it was unusual to see two days in a row of elevated thunderstorm activity.

He said normal thunderstorms with rain were expected in central parts of the state today, and a front would move through Tasmania on Friday, which would bring a change of air mass and cooler conditions and winds over the weekend.

“It does look like at some point next week we’ll have another fairly warm day, but at this stage it’s hard to narrow down which day,” he said.

“But this is likely to be another breakout day at some point next week.”