Tumut Fire Contained

Don’t get to excited about it all being in the clear. This fire covers about 13,000 hectares of pine plantation. Some have been completly destroyed but most of it has received heat damage that will kill the trees over the next few days leaving large areas of dry trees covered in brown pine needles and ten times more dangerous than before the fire. Any lightening strike will set it off.
The tip fire in Tumut that occurred last night is also a big worry as the local fire brigades are getting very tired.

Oh no-new Tumut fire here http://abc.net.au/news/items/200612/1813404.htm?act (sorry JB, don’t know how to change the link title to something natty and brief like ‘link’)

Reassuring info Samuel-thanks.

Well done to ya firies.

Managers, on-site staff and sometimes senior staff of broadcasters are notified in case of an “immediate broadcast” emergency.

If somebody is on-site (even if they aren’t on-air staff) you will have an announcement cut into programming ASAP.

If nobody is on-site, management will round up staff who live near the station and you will again have an announcement cut into programming ASAP.

Each station will have different policies about who is allowed to make the announcement, but they still have to make the announcement, regardless of what time of day it is.

Big thank you from me to all firies, SES and others involved.

Concerned about the reported communication problems though. I’ve been evacuated a couple of times: twice in Central Coast NSW (90’s), and like all Canberrans remember the sky turning a fearful black in 2003. My worry is that the local ABC has very little local content through the summer, especially in the evenings and on weekends when the *thrillsville* cricket is on. At the slightest whiff of smoke, I get nervous and start packing the kit. . . . it would be reassuring to have some info broadcast once an hour.

The Tumut fire was first noticed at 8.15 am on 10 December but the first tankers did not make it to the firefront until 12.30pm that day. Communication in the area is hopeless and the chance of putting out that fire on the first day was lost. Shades of the lightning strike of 8 January 2003 which eventually burnt out a large proportion of Weston Creek.

^^ SGS returns ?