General News
14 October, 2024
Rainfall provides relief for North West firefighters
Storms in the region helped extinguish fires near Mount Isa, officials said.
Soaking rain on Saturday helped extinguish a 100,000-hectare fire that had burned across the outskirts of Mount Isa for the past fortnight.
Queensland Rural Fire Service incident controller Sam Eitz said the fire on and around May Downs station had been burning between containment lines since Wednesday, which had been supported by continued aerial water bombing.
He said a combination of lower temperatures, reduced humidity and calmer wind gusts provided the favourable weather conditions required to prevent the fire threat increasing, which enabled aerial bombing to cease on Friday.
This was followed by the heavy rainfall on Saturday evening.
Mr Eitz said the storm had brought lighting that had struck some parts of the fire ground, however the rain had also quickly extinguished any new fires in the area.
“We have continued monitoring the fire ground at May Downs over the past few days but the rain at the weekend appears to have extinguished the fire completely,” he said.
The weekend storm has brought welcome relief to fire crews, with 13 urban and rural firefighters, deployed from Townsville and the south-east able to return home on Sunday.
An additional five rural firefighters arrived in Mount Isa on Monday to provide any necessary relief to local crews.
Dry lighting strikes caused three fires to flare on isolated areas south and west of Dajarra, however at time of print, landholders were working on machinery to create fire breaks to contain the blaze and no fire crews were required.
Mr Eitz told North West Weekly that all residents should monitor their own fire behaviour and to immediately report any suspicious blazes by calling Triple Zero.