Huon begins its recovery
HUON Valley businesses are beginning their bounce-back from devastating bushfires.
Just a week after Geeveston was almost surrounded by fire, local traders say they are back and open for business.
Firefighting efforts continue against more then two dozen blazes around the state.
COLD and wet conditions have hampered firefighters’ access to tackle defiant blazes burning throughout the state.
While welcome rain over the last week has reduced the immediate risk to communities, several large fires continue to burn deep in the Tasmanian bush.
Frost, sleet and snow forecast in the Central Highlands across the next few days is expected to pose a safety risk for fire crews getting onto remote fire grounds.
Softer conditions have also resulted in fire trucks getting bogged and reduced their off road access to attack the fires.
Tasmania Fire Service Great Pine Tier fire incident controller Steve Richardson said the conditions had helped disguise and hide some hot spots.
“While they may not be visually burning, there’s lots of large heavy timber across the landscape still burning quite well,” he said.
“There’s not been enough rain to put the large timber out.”
He said their main concern was if dry and windy weather returned the hot spots could “come back to the surface and start another fire”.
Mr Richardson said the TFS had been using thermal imaging equipment to locate hot spots.
“Once we’ve located them
we still have to get crews in, and given that it’s in a lot of inaccessible terrain means we need aircraft to fly our firefighters in on the ground,” he said.
Great Pine Tier planning officer Alex Bradley said wetter conditions were making aerial insertion difficult.
“We’re conscious of the safety of some of the crews,” he said.
“A lot of crews are working 1000m above sea level and with some of the weather were seeing it’s proved difficult to conduct our operations.
“We don’t have any active running fire at the moment, but again I stress that is purely temporary.
“The fire risk is still there, we are expecting it to pick up in coming days.”
Across the state firefighters continued to their efforts to extinguish fire edges yesterday.
Station officer Phil Douglas told a community meeting at Geeveston on Saturday the cooler conditions meant the Huon Valley fire wasn’t taking an overnight run, making it easier for firefighters to continue their work the following day.
“The fire is still growing though,” he said.
“At the end of the day we’ve had insufficient rain to put this out, there’s a lot of work still to do.”
Divisional commander George Auchterlonie said their focus had shifted from steering the fire away from the town to attacking hot spots to put them out.
He said they had also used a thermal imaging camera from a helicopter to detect hot spots along the eastern edge from Hopetoun Rd in Glendevie to Braeside Rd in Castle Forbes Bay.
Firefighters have been dealt another blow after 350 litres of diesel was stolen from an excavator being used to construct containment lines in the Central Highlands.
Sergeant John Delpero said the fuel was taken from Bashan Rd in the Victoria Valley area between February 8-9.
Information to Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or crimestopperstas.com.au