Tasmanian authorities are battling more than a dozen bushfires as low cloud and strong winds hamper efforts in the state's west. Sixteen fires have already burned through 45,000 hectares, with multiple emergency warnings still in place. Rebecca Pridham reports.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00I'm here at the Xi'an fire station where there's been a community drop-in session.
00:07Tasmania is dealing with a really vast region of fires here.
00:12It's all the way from Cradle Mountain to Sandy Cape on the coast there.
00:16We're looking at about 45,000 hectares.
00:19Now there were evacuation warnings, emergency level warnings sent out to Karina and to Sandy
00:26Cape yesterday.
00:27Karina has since been downgraded to a watch and act but it's not safe for people to return.
00:32Now up the road from me there is an evacuation centre where about a dozen people checked
00:38in yesterday from the Karina region.
00:40Not all of them stayed but they've been able to access shelter and different amenities
00:45and to stay safe.
00:46We're dealing with some really difficult terrain here.
00:49There's limited road access.
00:50It's a really remote area and because of some of the smoke and low cloud it's been really
00:54difficult for aircraft to be able to see the fire area.
00:58Today we're looking at 20 aircraft.
01:00We're looking at 60 remote area firefighters and six bulldozers and they're really going
01:05to be looking at targeting that infrastructure and natural values including things like huon
01:11pine and pencil pine.
01:13Now we could be here for some time, potentially a couple of weeks.
01:18The winds do keep changing and it is really hot here right now.
01:22It is 29 degrees so fire authorities really are dealing with some challenging conditions.
01:28There's a little bit of rain forecast for this weekend, about 10-30mm but that's not
01:34going to be nearly enough to deal with the scale of the fires that we have here on the
01:39west coast.