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Speaker 1: Now we know the chief Fire Control Officer and Bushfires

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Speaker 1: NT and the chief fire Officer having declared a twenty

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Speaker 1: four hour fireban.

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Speaker 2: Period for today.

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Speaker 1: Now joining me on the line is the NT chief

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Speaker 1: fire controller for Bushfires NT.

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Speaker 2: Tony Fuller. Good morning to you. Good morning, Katie, Tony.

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Speaker 1: Busy day or a busy week, I'm assuming it's how

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Speaker 1: are things looking for today? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: Look obviously extreme again today our third fireband in a row,

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Speaker 3: which is a third for the season. Actually so hasn't

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Speaker 3: been too bad of a season in relation to firebands.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, we had a bit of a busy day

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Speaker 3: yesterday with a couple of fires started, one at Marraquoi

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Speaker 3: and one of Leonine Road. The one a Leanine I

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Speaker 3: rode the crews got onto pretty quickly. They're actually out

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Speaker 3: about nearby and saw the smoke and responded straight away

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Speaker 3: and got hold of that way. Yeah, which was good.

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Speaker 3: Saved us a lot of work. Yeah, well it's good.

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Speaker 1: It is good when they get out, like when they're

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Speaker 1: able to be there early and you know, save that work.

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Speaker 1: It does seem like each year some of those locations

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Speaker 1: we kind of hear them come up again and again.

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Speaker 1: But I suppose they are just areas that are more

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Speaker 1: prone to bushfire, are they tony?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, there are ones that go every year and

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Speaker 3: we try and mitigate against those. We've done it. You'll

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Speaker 3: notice that there's a fairly large fire going on and

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Speaker 3: down river Dam at the moment.

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Speaker 1: Yep.

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Speaker 3: But that fire, it'll burn for a few days, but

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Speaker 3: that's contained into mitigation where it was done earlier in

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Speaker 3: the years, so we're not too worried about that. We're

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Speaker 3: keeping an eye on it, but it's certainly well within

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Speaker 3: area that was burned earlier on in the year, which

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Speaker 3: is good for get that chance to do that mitigation

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Speaker 3: and then we don't have to worry too much about

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Speaker 3: those type of fires.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Well, and it just hopefully means that it's maybe not

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Speaker 1: as bad as we get further into the season.

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Speaker 2: Like, how is the outlook looking.

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Speaker 1: Over the next couple of weeks or is it still

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Speaker 1: sort of a bit hard to tell if it's going

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Speaker 1: to be a bad season or not.

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Speaker 3: Look, there is still a lot of fuel out there,

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Speaker 3: so we're expecting that we'll be going for another month

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Speaker 3: or two at least in the top end, probably into

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Speaker 3: November at this stage. But there is a national meeting

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Speaker 3: on at the moment AFHAC, and there'll be some seasonal

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Speaker 3: outlooks provided later in the week that we'll give everyone

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Speaker 3: an overview what we're expecting to cross the NTA And

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Speaker 3: as a bit of a early heads up, it's an

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Speaker 3: embargo that it's not looking good for us. We're gonna

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Speaker 3: have a pretty bad season.

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Speaker 1: Yeah right, So all hands on deck and hoping people

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Speaker 1: look buddy prepared their blocks.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Look, and I'll probably get in trouble for this one,

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Speaker 3: but anyone who wants to make their lawn today just

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Speaker 3: tell them. I said, yes, we had too. Fire started

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Speaker 3: yesterday and that was some people mowing their lawns from

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Speaker 3: the slasher and was a right eye law and more

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Speaker 3: and yeah lucky one of them was obviously we got

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Speaker 3: onto that pretty quickly, and the other one the landholders

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Speaker 3: got hold of. But yeah, today is not the day

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Speaker 3: to be my lawns.

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Speaker 1: Yeah and tiny In terms of people preparing their blocks,

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Speaker 1: have the majority done the right thing up until this

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Speaker 1: point or are there still some blocks that you know

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Speaker 1: that they haven't look.

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Speaker 3: About eight per ninety of the inspections we've done have

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Speaker 3: been very good. A lot of the rural land holders

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Speaker 3: BA certainly are where what the issues are and they

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Speaker 3: do put their brakes in, but there's still those a

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Speaker 3: very few places that haven't got breaks in. And there

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Speaker 3: was a photo that we put up on Facebook the

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Speaker 3: other day of one of my crews driving on a

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Speaker 3: gambre firebreak. It was literally all gamber and they're trying

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Speaker 3: to push along the fence line and it was totally

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Speaker 3: covered in gamber, which is makes it very hard for

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Speaker 3: the crews to try and put a fire out. And

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Speaker 3: we keep telling people we're not we put bushfires. We

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Speaker 3: don't do structure fires, so we're not trained or equip

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Speaker 3: for that sort of fire. So if we'll do whatever

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Speaker 3: we can to stop the fire from hitting your structures,

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Speaker 3: but if the structure starts going up, there's very little,

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Speaker 3: if anything, we can do, and the crews will actually withdraw.

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Speaker 3: They're not putting themselves at risk.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's exactly right, Like you've got to make

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Speaker 1: sure that the crews are safe as well.

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Speaker 2: But people need to do the right thing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, And the majority of landowners do they do

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Speaker 3: do the right thing. They know that those firebreaks may

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Speaker 3: not necessarily stop a fire from a crossing from their neighbor.

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Speaker 3: But I'll certainly give our crews the best opportunity to

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Speaker 3: get in there and put blackbirds in it or do

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Speaker 3: other mitigation work to stop the fire crossing into their property.

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Speaker 3: So you know, if there's big winds on, nothing's going

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Speaker 3: to stop. You know, we gamble will spot one to

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Speaker 3: two kilometers away at least yelp. So we can't with

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Speaker 3: those wins, we can't stop that. We can certainly work

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Speaker 3: with the landholders.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Tony, any other messages really for our listeners this morning.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we know it's a It is that fireban

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Speaker 1: for today, which means that really nobody's allowed to light

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Speaker 1: a fire or cause a fire to be You've said there,

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Speaker 1: you know, don't jump on and decide to mow your

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Speaker 1: lawn today. That's the cause of two of those fires yesterday.

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Speaker 1: I mean, really, is it just like be cautious?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And if you see a fire ring triple

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Speaker 3: zero straight away the police communication centers set up that

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Speaker 3: all fires should go through them and don't ring us

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Speaker 3: and will work out where it is and work out

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Speaker 3: whether it's us or the anti fire will respond to

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Speaker 3: that fire. But we want people to ring that number

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Speaker 3: straight away triple zero and just let them know where.

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Speaker 1: The fire is.

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Speaker 3: But look, we've got more high fire danger for the

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Speaker 3: rest of the week, right up to Sunday at this stage,

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Speaker 3: so at least Saturday. So just be aware that it's

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Speaker 3: just because it's not extreme, it's still bad weather and

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Speaker 3: for fire and just be be cautious when you're out

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Speaker 3: and the bed. Yeah, and restrict your lord mind made

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Speaker 3: in the afternoon or if you are going to know

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Speaker 3: the law and have someone watching you with some sort

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Speaker 3: of extinguish it so if something does happen, you put

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Speaker 3: it out. Last year we had a lot of people slashing,

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Speaker 3: and that we had a lot of fires. Yeah, we

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Speaker 3: want people to slash, but it's a bit late on

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Speaker 3: a firebrand day to be daught.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, do you reckon people just don't realize that that's

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Speaker 1: going to that it could potentially cause a fire or

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Speaker 1: do you think they just think, oh goodness, it's you know,

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Speaker 1: like there's a fire band today.

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Speaker 2: I've got to make sure my yards, my yard's prepared.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know, it's some of that for sure,

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Speaker 3: but it's just it's one of those things that does happen,

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Speaker 3: and then it's surprising how easy. It happens just a

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Speaker 3: little sparked and can start up pretty big fire really

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Speaker 3: really quickly. Yeah, when it gets into the long grass

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Speaker 3: and it takes off, very hard to pull them up.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well bushfires in tes Tony Fuller, good to speak

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Speaker 1: with you this morning.

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Speaker 2: I really appreciate your time. I know you're a busy man.

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Speaker 3: Thanks every good day you too. Thank you