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Update On Gippsland Fires

A light sprinkling of rain and cooler temperatures overnight have been welcomed by firefighters and the community alike, helping to halt the spread of the two remaining fires in Gippsland.

By Department of Sustainability and Environment - 16th April 2004 - Back to News

At Neerim South the fire has been contained at 360 hectares and work will now concentrate on consolidation and blacking out.

Incident Controller Bob Brinkman said that crews from Grand Ridge Plantations worked with DSE overnight consolidating lines around the fire where it broke away towards the pine plantations yesterday.

"Crews have been burning out the unburnt patches early in the evening and for the rest of the night they've been blacking out," Mr Brinkman said.

"Visiting fire crews will be released today to go home or assist on the Blue Rock fire, leaving local crews managing the fire here."

The Blue Rock fire is still going at 2400 hectares and is expected to be contained by tomorrow morning when control lines will be completed around the fire.

Incident Controller Ewan Waller said that there weren't too many problems overnight with light rain wetting the fuels and fire behaviour dying away.

"The immediate threat to private land to the south has been stopped, but the fire is now in difficult country in the Serpentine Creek area," Mr Waller said.

"The plan will be to burn the area out from established control lines on the main roads. Any backburning can only commence when the forest fuels have dried out, but we want to start as soon as possible"

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com

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