The Rural Fire Service says it will have to manage volunteer fatigue as it anticipates a longer-than-usual fire season due to rapidly drying prolific grass growth.
abc.net.au/news/fire-outlook-prolonged-season-western-queensland/102018698The Rural Fire Service has raised concerns about volunteer fatigue as south-west Queensland heads into an "unprecedented" prolonged fire season this autumn.The weather bureau predicts warmer than median temperatures for March to MaySouth West Rural Fire Service superintendent Wayne Waltisbuhl said he could not remember the last time a fire season continued through to March.
Volunteer firefighters have worked to contain and extinguish several fires burning through tens of thousands of hectares in the Western Downs region of Queensland for the past six weeks, where"We had some serious rain the latter part of 2022 that provided prolific grass growth almost right across our region," Mr Waltisbuhl said.
"Now that grass has cured off, it's quite available for fire and I think the soil moisture is getting pretty low, and all that dead grass is available to fuel even after light sprinkles of rain." Mr Waltisbuhl said landholders in areas of the South West region, which extends to the South Australia and New South Wales borders, will experience especially challenging conditions.
"We've seen our fires develop quite rapidly in a time that those people haven't been able to do anything to contain it," he said.The latest data from the Bureau of Meteorology shows March to May maximum temperatures have a 60 to 80 per cent chance of being warmer than median for most of Australia, excluding Far North Queensland and the New South Wales coast.
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