Currently the fire at Evans Head, that appears to have been deliberately lit, covers 1,235ha. It is understood that the fire could have been started by an illegal campfire.
The fire started near the boundary of the southern end of Dirawong Reserve and the RAAF’s Air Weapons Range and Bundjalung National Park on Friday. The fire grew rapidly into a large fire that was pushed south and west by strong northeasterly winds.
The fire was brought under control by multiple ground crews and air attack over several days. Two fixed wing waterbombers, a large specialist waterbomber and four helicopters with water buckets made water and fire retardant runs in an attempt to bring the fire under control.
‘We are currently implementing a small backburn to secure the fire and we anticipate that when complete (and if conditions hold) we can downgrade the fire from “being controlled” to “contained”,’ a spokesperson for the Spokesperson Department of Planning and Environment (includes NPWS) told The Echo.
Evans Head Memorial Aerodrome
A key to bringing the fire under control was the use of the World War II State Heritage Listed Evans Head Memorial Aerodrome which was used for both fire control and refuelling of aircraft.
Dr Richard Gates, former chair of the Evans Head Memorial Aerodrome Committee, said today that the aerodrome continues to play an important role in both flood and fire control in the region.
‘If it hadn’t been for the community fighting to keep the aerodrome it would have been lost completely to housing development by Richmond Valley and the former Richmond River Shire Councils,’ he explained.
‘The committee, with the support of World War II Veterans, the community, and important public figures such as Nancy Bird Walton after whom the Western Sydney Airport is named, made sure that the short-sightedness of council did not prevail. That such an important piece of public infrastructure had to be saved for public benefit by the public raises serious questions about the decision-making of governments at all levels. The same applies to the Dirawong Reserve where it was the public including the Aboriginal community which saved the Reserve for public use away from the hands of developers nearly forty years ago.’
Backburn
The backburn that is currently underway has seen the fire be contained. The extensive backburn yesterday from the Dirawong Trail, which runs off the Weapons Range Road at Evans Head, to the south, created a large plume of smoke which alarmed some locals.
The evening before the blackburn saw an extensive fire on the hill near the northern entrance to the Weapons Range.
A number of ground crews kept the fire under control along the Weapons Range Road preventing it from getting into the Bundjalung National Park wetland system which runs behind houses along the south side of the Evans River Estuary and the extensive apiary area along the western side of the road.
‘The night sky was lit up by the fire attracting lots of visitors to South Evans Head to view the fire,’ said Dr Gates.
Earlier action needed
Another local said they were very sad for all the animals that will not only lose their lives in the fire but also their habitat and food source.
Dr Gates said today that it was unfortunate that the fixed wing water bombers/air tractors hadn’t been called in from the beginning the night before the wind got up and the fire took off.
‘They should have been ready to roll the next morning. We already had substantial experience of the importance of an early call in the 2007 Section 44 Bushfire Emergency. Why the delay in deploying the aircraft had occurred is not clear.
‘We know that Rural Fire Services have many demands for equipment and resources and that it takes time to get equipment here but we should have learned from the 2007 experience about the critical importance of early intervention. My committee had suggested that Evans Head become a home base for aviation resources but Council and the State government insisted on Casino at the time and we are now seeing the effects of not having resources on hand for a quick response. The Aerodrome is one of those facilities that remains open for aviation traffic when many others are closed.’
It now appears that much of the northern end of the Dirawong Reserve remains intact following the fire and it shouldn’t be long before the road to the Chinaman’s Beach area in the Reserve is opened again for public use. It will take some time for the southern end of the Reserve to recover from the hot burn.
‘Hopefully there will be some rain in the meantime to extinguish remaining hot spots although areas with deep peat could continue to burn for many weeks as happened in 2007 and in earlier fires,’ explained Dr Gates.
‘There should be a post mortem on this fire and its causes and questions raised about there not being a manager on the ground for the Dirawong. The Dirawong is currently being managed by a remote administrator appointed by the Minister for Crown Lands on 9 August following the end of term of the last board. It is now almost three months since applications first closed for the Board of the Reserve.’
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