THE efforts of more than 200 firefighters have been praised by Swan Hill CFA captain Nipper Turner after a grassfire got out of control on Monday.
The blaze, which began in Third Marsh, burned through 400ha of land near Lake Charm and Kangaroo Lake.
Following a request for assistance from DEPI firefighters after the fire broke containment lines, 36 firefighting vehicles were dispatched to the site.
“When we got there the fire was running really hard in the wind that we had — it took a lot of resources to get the fire to pull up,” Mr Turner said.
“I thought we were going to lose houses that afternoon. I mean, you can’t fight fires running at 80km an hour.”
Mr Turner praised the efforts of Lake Charm brigade captain Brett Boyd for tactical thinking at the right moment.
“[He] threw a lot of resources at the head of the fire at the railway line — that was a good move on his behalf. With a bit of luck and lot of hard work we got there,” he said.
“We would have lost houses within a few minutes if we hadn’t stopped it at the railway line.”
CFA acting operations manager John Breaks said it was unclear how the fire started after it first ignited in the marshes on Sunday.
In total, 36 firefighting vehicles, 200 personnel, 20 tankers and four helicopters worked to control the fire.
By 4pm CFA firefighters had managed to contain the blaze, saying “there was a lot of work to do” to keep it under control.
“It’s still very active but we’ve got it contained,” Mr Turner told The Guardian at the time.
While sleeper tracks forming part of the Bendigo-Swan Hill railway line were burnt, V/Line officers allowed train travel to resume after an inspection late on Monday.
Mr Breaks said strong winds had fuelled the fire.
“It was certainly windy, but the conditions weren’t as bad as Black Saturday, it wasn’t as hot, it was just windy,” he said.
Fire crews monitored the site overnight on Monday and at time of printing it was contained, he said.
“They are continuing to black out the edges of the fire and assess standing trees,” Mr Breaks said.
But temperatures are expected to soar to 40 degrees at the weekend.
“We are expecting the fire danger to increase significantly over Friday and the weekend,” Mr Breaks said.
