Firefighters still working to contain blaze at Bulahdelah

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Elsewhere in New South Wales fire crews are still working to contain a fire on the mid north coast. The blaze at Bulahdelah has burned through more than 4-thousand hectares since it began late last week.

Transcript

00:00I'm here at Bulladila Showground which is just a hub of activity as firefighters try to control

00:08this fire that has been burning since Thursday last week. We've been watching helicopters come

00:15in and take off for water bombing efforts. This fire's at advice level. It's burnt through 4,600

00:22hectares since it began on Thursday. Four houses have been destroyed and very sadly one life loss

00:29and National Parks and Wildlife Services worker who was fighting the fire. Here at the showground

00:36it is very smoky. Driving in the Pacific Highway is open but one lane of traffic in each direction.

00:45There are burnt trees on both sides of the highway. Speaking to local residents, many of them evacuated

00:52over the weekend. They were seeing embers fly onto their property. They were seeing the fire come

00:59right up to the boundaries. We spoke to a Merino sheep farmer who said that six, seven months ago back

01:09in May she had 1.4 metres of water come through her property in floods and now she has described the

01:17area as just a tinderbox following some really dry weather. She said she's on edge. She's very

01:25concerned over the weekend. We saw the wind push this fire in all sorts of directions so it's one that the

01:32community is certainly keeping a very close eye on to see what it does next. It's just been an absolute

01:39nightmare from woe to go and but I've got to give credit to the RFS. They have been amazing. They have

01:46not stopped with helicopters and spotter planes and fire brigades and people on the ground have just been

01:53amazing. In terms of firefighting efforts today it is meant to be very hot and very dry. There is a high

02:00fire danger rating so fire crews are on the ground. It is certainly a blaze that crews are particularly

02:08concerned about.

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