Fed: Bushfires continue to circle capital
Copyright 2001 AAP NEWSFEED
December 26, 2001
By Linda McSweeny, Sharon Mathieson and Denis Peters CANBERRA, Dec 26
Five bushfires fanned by strong winds surrounded the national capital today as fire crews called in help from Victoria.
No homes were lost in the ACT and injuries were minor but firefighters were preparing for a frantic week, with temperatures expected to soar again by the weekend.
The most intensive and rapidly spreading fire was at Stromlo pine forest in the west, where two fires merged into one after igniting on Christmas Eve.
"That's the one that has the greatest potential to get up and going again," ACT Fire Brigade operations officer Tony Graham said.
"That has burnt in the vicinity of 700 to 800 hectares and there's still some active fire front in two places, so that's uncontained line.
"We're saturating that line, we've been water bombing it for two days."
Other fires continued to burn in the city's north, at O'Connor Ridge, inner-suburban Red Hill, Mt Wanniassa in the south-west and across the border to the NSW town of Queanbeyan.
Emergency Services Bureau executive director Mike Castle said two Victorian Country Fire Authority crews would join 36 ACT fire crews hoping to take advantage of a temporary breather in the strong winds.
"What we particularly wanted to do was to get as many units as we can to work on this large fire (at Stromlo) because we've got a window of opportunity of some milder winds over the next day-and-a-half," Mr Castle said.
There was still no clear picture of the cause of the bushfires.
An Australian Federal Police spokesman said a youth had been interviewed in relation to starting the fires but was later released.
"And as yet we've got no further information. We do believe some of the fires were deliberately lit," he said.
One local firefighter was today bitten by a spider and another was nursing a gash on his leg but there were no other injuries.
At the National Zoo and Aquarium near the Stromlo fire, animals dodged about 20 spot fires and escaped injury after zoo owner Richard Tindale opened enclosures.
"We were absolutely petrified for the animals ... because the smoke and the heat were just so intense that we didn't know what we were going to find when we came back and we stayed until the last second," he said on ABC radio.
"Anything around the boundaries, and anything that we possibly could, we let loose within the confines of the ground, we opened up all their enclosures to get them away from the edges."
Predators such as lions and tigers could not be let loose.
"But we just gave them access to the dam so they could choose to be inside or outside," he said.
Also today a swamp wallaby was found swimming across Lake Burley Griffin and RSPCA officers found a kangaroo joey with burnt feet and a number of orphaned birds.