Catastrophic fire danger ratings issued for parts of SA

Cameron Devey from the South Australian Country Fire Service says residents should be on high alert.

Transcript

00:00 We haven't seen conditions like this for several years. It takes us back locally to conditions

00:07 that we saw when the Pinery Fire started. We know that we do have rain coming that is

00:12 forecast but unfortunately that Pinery Fire burnt for five hours and was devastating the

00:17 impacts that were seen broadly across the state and it was five hours before our firefighters

00:22 could actually make any impact on that fire. We've got catastrophic conditions rated for

00:26 the Eyre Peninsula, the Flinders, the Mid North, York Peninsula and the Riverland today.

00:31 We'll also see extreme conditions in the North East Pastoral, West Coast, Mount Lofty regions

00:38 and the Murraylands and Upper South East. The weather we've got no control over as you

00:42 can appreciate and most people would have heard Chief Officer Lachlan speak yesterday

00:46 that that was of great concern to him. We do have fires burning currently in Melrose,

00:51 Lockheel and Hamley Bridge. The Melrose Fire is of most concern to us and we have significant

00:57 resources including aviation resources working on that fire. We used our opportunity to call

01:03 for the National Large Air Tanker to come across from the eastern states and it's positioned

01:07 currently at Edinburgh should we require it to support the firefighting efforts. Just

01:12 going back to that conversation around preparedness, we've been planning for this all week. There's

01:16 extensive preparations being put into place. Our State Control Centre is activated as you

01:21 can probably see behind me. We're constantly talking to our local regions and the regions

01:25 are talking to our senior leadership within the volunteer cohort. It's never too late

01:29 to plan for a bushfire. We want residents, people travelling through areas to have a

01:33 plan. We want them to talk to their partners, their friends, their families and make sure

01:38 there's not just a plan for when they're at home but many people will be at work today

01:41 and we want to make sure that they've got a plan in place should people back at home

01:46 need to leave. And the advice that we have to if there's a fire coming, please leave

01:51 early, make the decision early. We do have the option of people moving to safer places

01:57 and ultimately places of last resort but I want to touch on that last resort conversation

02:01 is that it is exactly that. It would be an uncomfortable place for people to be during

02:05 a major bushfire and we can't anticipate that resources and other services will be in those

02:10 locations to support people there.

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