Changing winds could push fire towards Tennant Creek

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Fire crews are bolstering containment lines and carrying out strategic back burning in the ongoing fight against a bushfire in the Northern Territory's Barkly region. A wind change has made things more difficult on the ground but relief personnel are on their way from interstate to assist.

Transcript

00:00 Multiple containment lines have been broken both to the north and south of Tenant Creek

00:06 and that fire is now moving rapidly on land which crews are unable to stop.

00:12 One of the fire fronts is heading north towards the Barclay Highway and Three Ways Roadhouse

00:16 while the other is heading to an area of land south of Tenant Creek.

00:21 But current projections show the town itself is not in the fire's path.

00:26 We received an update from the Northern Territories Bushfire Authority earlier this afternoon.

00:31 So the crews were working hard on that to try and stop it.

00:34 There was a lot of aerial bombing as well as some attempts with some machinery to get

00:39 in front of it.

00:40 But the fire was just running too fast.

00:44 It was running about five or six kilometres an hour so they were unable to stop that one.

00:50 And it is currently going towards a containment line that we're trying to get in place underneath

00:57 the containment lines we did last night unfortunately.

01:01 So there's a bit of activity going on with that.

01:04 Again that fire is running about five or six kilometres an hour but it is fairly south

01:09 of Tenant Creek and it's not expected to impact Tenant Creek directly at this time.

01:14 We know that evacuations are being considered for several remote outstations but for the

01:18 people in Tenant Creek evacuation is not currently being considered.

01:23 There's also likely to be a number of road closures if the fire continues moving towards

01:27 the Barclay Highway and the Stuart Highway.

01:30 The wind has also been strong today up to 50 kilometres an hour at times and it's creating

01:35 all sorts of problems for pastoralists.

01:37 We know that Tenant Creek station has already been breached.

01:41 The fire has now burnt an area more than five times the size of the ACT.

01:46 But authorities say there is a huge amount of work being put into building additional

01:50 containment lines using earth moving equipment like bulldozers.

01:55 There's also been additional resources in the form of a New South Wales citation aircraft

02:00 to help with satellite mapping and from South Australia we expect crews to be on the ground

02:05 tomorrow.

02:06 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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