Police say a 16-year-old boy has been charged with starting a Central Queensland bushfire that has destroyed 14 homes, as firefighters concentrate on strengthening containment lines and extinguishing existing fires before the weather deteriorates over the weekend.
The charge relates to the Cobraball fire, west of Yeppoon, said state disaster coordinator and Deputy Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski.
“This investigation’s been ongoing since the start of the fire, so we’ve had an avenue of investigation that we’ve been pursuing,” he said.
They include “leave now” advice for the communities of Thornside, near Gympie, as well as Walkers Point Road and Kinkuna, which are both affected by the same Woodgate fire.
Fire crews have begun their investigation to determine the cause of the Noosa North Shore blaze, as residents this afternoon returned home to the island.
Sunshine Coast rural fire area director Andrew Allan said he could already conclude the fires were man-made and deliberate.
He said they had already pinpointed the point of origin — the side of a road in a fairly secluded area.
“It is absolutely [arson], there is no doubt about that, so now we just have to narrow down the spot and see if there’s some evidence there.”
About 400 people were evacuated from Buxton, south of Bundaberg, yesterday. Thirty people spent the night in an evacuation centre, but a warning for that area was downgraded last night.
David Grant left his camper-trailer in the Woodgate region yesterday and fled with his three dogs.
“I threw everything I could, as quick as I could, into the car and got out of there,” he said.
“The fire was just about 15 minutes behind me.
He spent the night in the evacuation centre and fears he has lost everything.
“I’d say it’d all be a pile of molten metal, from what went through there. There’d be nothing left. I’ve lost the lot,” he said.
“This is my life, it’s all I’ve got left.
“Who knows what tomorrow will bring, I don’t know, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
A 13-year-old boy was among those who spent the night by the side of Woodgate Road, waiting with a friend of his dad.
He had gone to school yesterday but his parents are on the other side of a roadblock.
“[I’m] a bit sad because all your family’s in a different area,” he said.
“You don’t know if they’re OK or not because my phone’s dead and no-one has communication.”
He said he wished he could say to his family, “I love you all and I hope you are all safe”.
Derek Carty was also separated from his partner and seven-month-old baby.
He said he was desperate for any information about when he could return home.
“We’ve been told so many different things and we want to go home to our families,” he said.
“All our phones are flat, we’ve got no toilets, no water or anything like that … we just want to know when we can go home.”
District disaster coordinator Inspector Pat Swindells said it was still too dangerous to let Woodgate residents return.
“The fire and emergency services have actions in place to try and suppress that fire, so we don’t know exactly when the road’s going to be open or when it will be safe for people to return, ” he said.
He said resources were in place to get any remaining residents out if conditions deteriorated again.
Michael Knepp, a senior forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology, said Thursday’s fire danger was much lower due to a cooler mass of air moving in and easing wind speeds.
But he warned the severe fire danger would likely return again on Friday, when temperatures are forecast to be about 8 degrees Celsius above average.
However, conditions are set to return to normal next week.
“We’ll be seeing an influx of moisture from the coast, so with the influx of moisture we’ll see more humid conditions and hopefully … we’ll see those conditions continue for the foreseeable future,” he said.
“Hopefully next week we’re going to see moisture pushing a fair way inland and it looks like the wind regime is fairly good.”
Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) South-Eastern Region Assistant Commissioner Kevin Walsh likened the state’s bushfire crisis, which started six days ago, to “a marathon with a number of sprints in between”.
“We’re looking forward to a reprieve [today] and then we’ll have to get ready again for some severe fire danger ratings from Friday through to Monday, with some potential dry lightning strikes coming as well, which will be the next challenge,” he said.
At its peak yesterday there were more than 90 fires burning in Queensland and emergency evacuations for Noosa North Shore, Woodgate, Buxton and Pechey, where a water-bombing helicopter crash-landed.
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This morning 23 former fire and SES chiefs from across the country united to call on the Federal Government to meet with and better resource crews on the ground.
Former QFES commissioner Lee Johnson has more than four decades experience on the frontline and said he has never seen a fire season like it.
“In my 40 years-plus of operational experience, I cannot recall a fire season in Queensland where we have had so much property loss and destruction,” he said.
“The outlook for this week and the rest of summer is not good, unless we get significant rain … conditions are going to be extreme.”
More than 1,100 firefighters have been at the fire fronts which have already destroyed more than 100,000 hectares of land in Queensland.QFES South-Eastern Region Assistant Commissioner Kevin Walsh said while fatigue had been a concern, most of the firefighters on the ground were faring well physically and looking to pace themselves in the coming days.
“In these types of incidents, when you get large, protracted, complex campaign fires, it takes the resources of a nation, and indeed our international friends, to assist us,” he said.
“We’ve had firefighters from the Northern Territory, New Zealand, Victoria … and we are extremely grateful.”
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said it was one year since Queensland was last dealing with catastrophic bushfire conditions, which had become the new normal.
“We’re used to dealing with natural disasters, we’re used to dealing with cyclones, we’re used to dealing with floods — bushfires on this scale is unprecedented,” she said.abc news