Bushfires cause cost blowout for state

RELENTLESS bushfires that have scorched Queensland and burnt homes to the ground are amounting to a cost blowout for the state.

Up to 50 homes and more than 200,000ha of land have been burnt since the beginning of the unprecedented bushfire season in September.

“What we don’t count is the number of houses our crews save,” Fire and Emergency Services Minister Craig Crawford said. “I think if you were to go out there in the last three months and count ... it would be many, many hundreds, if not into the thousands.”

But the costs of the fight are adding up.

A fleet of aircraft helping fire crews on the ground would in previous seasons have left Queensland for the southern states by now.

“We’ve kept most of those through until the end of January at least, at very large expense obviously to the state, as well as the ongoing bill that we’re carrying with wages and operations,” Mr Crawford said.

“But it’s worth it – we’ve got to do it.

“We’ll deal with the dollar figure at the end of it.”

At least 40 fires were still burning across the state yesterday.

Late yesterday, Redbank Creek residents were being told to immediately flee from a fast-moving blaze burning within Esk National Park.

People in Esk were being told to prepare to leave.

Residents were also being urged to evacuate due to separate fires at Mount Stanley, near Kingaroy, and at Patrick Estate and Wivenhoe Pocket, on the edge of Lake Wivenhoe.

Prepare to leave warnings were in place for a grassfire at Cornubia, south of Brisbane, along with those in Cypress Gardens and Forest Ridge, where the Millmerran fire was last night still burning.

The severe fire conditions have exhausted emergency crews on alert.