WARNING NOTE: TFS station officer and public information officer Phil Douglas addresses yesterday's community meeting at Ellendale. Picture: SAM ROSEWARNE
FIREFIGHTERS are going from house to house to work out which properties can be defended, as a large bushfire in the Upper Derwent Valley threatens to intensify later this week.
The Lake Repulse blaze has already destroyed more than 11,500ha and temperatures are forecast to hit the mid-30s tomorrow, with the dangerous combination of high winds continuing until Friday.
Those conditions constitute the worst-case scenario for the dozens of firefighters who have been battling the giant blaze for more than a week.
"This fire is burning in the worst possible terrain for firefighting," Tasmania Fire Service district officer Gerald Crawford yesterday told a packed community meeting at Ellendale, the township at greatest risk.
"We are here to give you the information you need to make the best decision on how to keep yourselves safe."
Ellendale residents were evacuated last week and are now this week faced with the same threat.
The majority of the fire, started by an unattended campfire on January 3, has been contained, but the TFS says this is a blaze that "is not playing by the rules".
Firefighting experts took to helicopters with thermal imaging equipment on Monday night to map the most dangerous spots still burning.
But lots of equipment was lost overnight when the fire jumped containment lines and destroyed hoses in its path.
"The message is 'Be vigilant, be extremely vigilant'," Mr Crawford told residents.
"I cannot guarantee the fire won't progress further south.
"Whatever we've got in our arsenal, we're using it ... but it might come further south."
The TFS warned residents it would not put crews in jeopardy and if properties were deemed undefendable firefighters would not put their lives at risk trying to save the unsaveable.
With his voice shaking, TFS station officer and public information officer Phil Douglas told the meeting that it was only good luck that no one had died in the devastating Dunalley blaze.
"We're doping it better [disseminating advice] but a lot of it was luck," he said.
He said when firefighters were battling bushfires they did not have the breathing equipment or protective gear to tackle structure fires.
Mr Crawford said the Lake Repulse blaze was in terrain that had not seen a fire probably since the 1930s and the fuel load was massive and very dangerous.
Ellendale residents and those in the surrounding communities of Ouse to Hamilton and beyond were urged to keep themselves updated from the TFS website and ABC radio.
"You need to be thinking about fire all the time," Mr Douglas said. "It needs to be part of your life.
"If you haven't made your property defendable by now, it is probably too late. But it is not too late to make sure your bushfire plan is in place, that you have nominated a safe place to go to and you know what you will do if the fire comes and it is too late to leave.
"It's happened at Dunalley. It could happen here."
Fires continued to burn across the state yesterday and the TFS made the most of cooler conditions before temperatures soar again.
Acting station officer Paul Symington said the main fires at Forcett on the Forestier Peninsula and Lake Repulse in the Upper Derwent Valley were still out of control yesterday.
"In the case of the Forcett fire, some edges have been tidied up but others are still burning and we're conducting backburning today ahead of temperatures increasing on Thursday and Friday," he said.
See www.fire.tas.gov.au for regular fire updates.
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