Loading ...
PINES valued at about $2 million were burnt in a fire that began in the Kentbruck area on Friday afternoon.
The fire started in a pine plantation 18 kilometres south-east of Nelson at 2.45pm Friday moving in a south-easterly direction and quickly burnt 200 hectares of plantation and 50 hectares of the national park near Kentbruck.
A change in wind direction at 3.40pm pushed the fire in a north-easterly direction, burning 1270 hectares in the next five hours.
More than 60 fire fighting units, 200 workers, four bulldozers, seven planes and six helicopters from the CFA, DSE and Parks Victoria have been attempting to control the blaze.
By Sunday afternoon 2000 hectares of native forests and national parks and 1000 hectares of private pine forests belonging to Hancocks Victorian Plantations and Green Triangle Forest Products had burnt.
At 9am Sunday the CFA said the fire had been controlled but was ongoing.
The CFA plans to burn an additional 3000 hectares to the north of the fire in order to create containment lines around it.
Incident controller Andy Cusack said CFA, DSE and Parks Victoria would spend the next two days back burning.
“There will be more smoke visible from back burning and this is still an active fire… it still has a lot of potential depending on the weather and other things that our out of my control,” Mr Cusack said.
Read more in Monday’s Portland Observer.
Print 
PDF
