At least one business impacted by Hunter Valley fires

ABC NEWS (Australia)

In the New South Wales Greater Hunter region, a business has been destroyed, but the true impact of two major bushfires is so far unclear.

Transcript

00:00 Fire conditions have slightly eased here this morning, but the threat is far from over and

00:06 you can get a sense of that with how much activity is happening from firefighters at

00:12 the moment.

00:13 There are fire crews around me in one of the streets here in Weston at the moment and we've

00:17 just had the water carrying helicopter fly over my head moments ago.

00:22 They are still working to control this fire here near Weston.

00:27 It reached an emergency level yesterday afternoon.

00:30 It was heading in an easterly direction, threatening the townships of Abermaine, Weston, Currie-Currie

00:36 and Perlore, Maine.

00:39 Firefighters worked really hard and tirelessly to protect houses in these towns.

00:44 Yesterday there were about 300 firefighters working on the blaze.

00:48 It's quite fascinating when you go around town and you can see that some buildings are

00:53 saved.

00:54 Behind me there is a tire business that has been destroyed by fire.

00:58 It was engulfed in flames yesterday.

01:01 There are people standing around here just trying to kind of take in exactly what's happened.

01:05 Many of them are feeling quite disheartened, quite upset and distressed, but they are all

01:12 saying they are so thankful that their family and friends and neighbours are okay.

01:17 This fire has gone down to an advice level now, however the Rural Fire Service is saying

01:23 that people need to remain on alert.

01:25 Not only is it going to get quite warm today and the wind is already starting to pick up,

01:29 but we are expecting extreme fire conditions tomorrow.

01:33 So they're working to contain this blaze.

01:35 They've been doing back burning to try and get on top of it ahead of tomorrow.

01:39 And schools have also been closed in this area as a precaution.

01:43 We don't know the extent of damage yet.

01:45 Fire crews are going around to do damage assessments today and that will give us a clearer indication

01:50 of just how many buildings and properties potentially have been lost.

01:53 Yeah, Romy, we can see the clean up at that tyre plant taking place behind you.

02:00 There was also a fire further south near Lake Macquarie.

02:03 Did that cause any damage?

02:07 That fire we don't believe has destroyed any properties.

02:11 It was much smaller than this one.

02:13 This fire burnt over 600 hectares.

02:16 That one looks like it's only burnt just over 60 hectares.

02:20 It was threatening towns like West Wolsend in Cameron Park yesterday afternoon and did

02:25 reach that emergency level, but it now has also gone down to the advice level.

02:31 But once again, those communities are being urged to remain on alert.

02:34 And that's mainly because tomorrow we are expecting to see the temperatures get close

02:39 to 40 degrees and there are high winds expected as well.

02:44 But there's also this area is extraordinarily dry.

02:47 We did have rain a couple of weeks ago.

02:50 However, in the time since then, it's been hot conditions.

02:53 So all the soils and vegetation has dried out.

02:56 So we can expect that if we do get those fire conditions, these fires could either flare

03:01 up or more could start in this area.

03:03 So the Rural Fire Service is really asking communities around here to stay vigilant today.

03:08 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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