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HAMILTON woke to an ominous smoke cloud Tuesday morning and misleading reports that the bushfire, north-west of Portland, had already razed houses, evacuated the town of Dartmoor and was due to double in size.
Dartmoor residents gathered at a meeting, where one man asked why they were all there if the town had been evacuated.
Meanwhile a faulty CFA FireReady android app stated that the fire was under control.
Yesterday, CFA deputy incident controller, Andy Cusack said the fire had never been under control, but there was no imminent threat to any homes.
“We’ve been pretty disappointed in some of the reporting that’s occurring,” he said.
“It causes fear in the community when they hear that people are evacuating, houses are burning and some of the other conspiracy theories that have gone around; none of them are true.
“It is of high priority that the media is involved to provide warnings and raise awareness, but if the message is wrong that creates a real problem.”
A cool change on Tuesday came as a relief to the 400-strong team battling the fires, which had spread to 6651 hectares by yesterday morning.
Find more detail’s in Thursday’s edition of The Spectator.
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