SLEEPLESS NIGHT AS MASSIVE BLAZE THREATENS
FIREFIGHTERS were last night backburning in the path of a huge scrub fire near Cudgen to prevent it spreading further south.
At deadline, some Tweed residents were set for a sleepless night after being urged to prepare for evacuation.
Police and emergency services doorknocked homes and businesses, including the popular Tropical Fruit World, at 1.30pm as it threatened to burn out of control.
Mother-of-two JulieAnne (surname withheld) said she received a call at work on the Gold Coast from her teenage kids after police knocked on their door of their Melaleuca Rd property.
“It was a very long 40 minutes on the drive home,” she said, estimating flames came within 500m of their house, before the wind turned and firefighters got it under control.
“It’s pretty scary, we won’t be getting a lot of sleep tonight. If the fire jumps over to the next-door neighbour’s where there are a lot of trees, if that goes up we’ll be in trouble.
“The car is packed and we are ready to go if we need to.”
At its peak yesterday, 10 fire trucks and about 30 firefighters were working to contain the grass blaze which burned through 100 hectares on the Tweed Coast.
Incident controller Jared Lee said crews would be at the scene throughout the night, having first been called to the Kings Forest fire at 10.45am.
“We are backburning to strengthen control lines but it is contained,” he said, adding it was not a threat to homes.
Tropical Fruit World general manager Aymon Gow said more than 200 guests and staff were evacuated from the farm around 1.30pm as northeasterly winds began to blow the blaze in their direction.
“It’s better to be safe than sorry and we decided to get everyone up and out of the park,” Mr Gow said.
“It’s the first time in 30 years the park has been around that we have had to evacuate.”
It is understood the fire was ignited by a car which stopped on the side of Depot Rd after it began to overheat.