Australia Day Fire on the Murrumbidgee

On the morning of Australia Day crews were called out to a fire started by an unattended campfire in the Murrumbidgee corridor behind the Fairvale property on the Cotter Road.

The first arriving firefighters included volunteers and Parks brigade members who were on their way home from the second deployment to the Tumut fires.

Crews worked in steep, craggy country with handtools, portable pumps and the help of aviation to knock down the fire and start blacking out. Relief crews from Gungahlin helped out the Rivers, Molonglo and Parks crews who had worked throughout the day blacking out the fire.

Fires at Tumut

On Sunday 19 January 2014 the first group of ACT RFS volunteers, along with Parks and ESA staff left Canberra to help out with fires burning around Tumut. A second deployment left Canberra on 22 January.

This post will be updated, please send through any photos to rfsadmin@act.gov.au

Thanks to Jeff House from Gungahlin and Kaylea Boulter from Southern for the photos:

  

Photo: Kyle French

Photo: Kyle French

Photo: Kyle French

Photo: Jamie Lankford

Photo: Kyle French

Photo: Jamie Lankford

Photo: Jamie Lankford

Photo: Russel Perry

Photo: Jamie Lankford

Photo: Jamie Lankford

Photo: Jamie Lankford

Photo: Jamie Lankford

Photo: Kyle French

Photo: Kim Fitzgerald SES

Photo: Kim Fitzgerald SES

Grassfire near Tuggeranong Pine Plantation

On Friday 3 Jan at approx 2:16pm, a man was driving along the Monaro Highway when a mechanical fault sparked a fire in the car engine. Sparks from the car fire then started a small grassfire near Tuggeranong Pine Plantation. Eight ACT Rural Fire Service crews and 3 ACT Fire and Rescue crews and a commander contained and extinguished the fire. The fire was approx 2 Hectares in size and was blacked out by about 6pm. (Photos courtesy of Mitch Rodway, Garry Mayo and Gary Hooker).

Some additional photos of our Fire & Rescue colleagues at work have been provided by RFS Facebook page follower William Cocks.

The car fire on the Monaro Highway, near Tuggeranong Pine Plantation which started the bushfire.

The grassfire was running pretty fast when the first crews arrived - see video clip here.  The first priority was to whip around and secure the perimeter of the fire and put out any spot fires.

Once the perimeter of the fire was contained, then the mopping up process was able to commence.

A Parks crew blacking out from the outside to inside of the fire.

Mitch Rodway, Lauren Frett and Brennan Blaseotto mopping up.

More mopping up.

Garry Mayo and Braydon Reid putting out a smoker.

A lot of hoses were rolled out to get into the hotspots.

Jerra 10 crew apply special  fire retardant foam to trees.

 

Mopping up is nearly completed, just a few smokers left.

Alan Ashman, Brennan Blaseotto, Mitch Rodway and Lauren Flett,  GCRK 10 tanker crew looking a bit black after rolling up hoses.

Braydon Reid and Garry Mayo filling up the tanker from a fire hydrant located at the intersection of Johnson Drive and Clift Crescent, Richardson.

The end of the mop up - it all looks good.

Photo: William Cocks

Photo: William Cocks

Photo: William Cocks

Photo: William Cocks