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Speaker 1: We know that there were a number of bushfires in

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Speaker 1: rural parks across the weekend when that extreme fire danger

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Speaker 1: rating was in place. A bushfire at Central Valley in

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Speaker 1: Litchfield National Park required a huge amount of resources, with

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Speaker 1: several campgrounds still closed. Now joining me on the line

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Speaker 1: to give us a bit of an update is Bushfires

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Speaker 1: into his incident controller, Tony full O. Good morning, Tony,

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Speaker 1: you're good morning, Katie mate. How did things go over

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Speaker 1: the weekend?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty good.

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Speaker 3: Today's whether it's going to help us a lot more.

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Speaker 3: We're hoping that we'll transfer control back to parks today,

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Speaker 3: but as you said, those campgrounds will remain closed till

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Speaker 3: Wednesday at the stage, and parks will obviously reassess that

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Speaker 3: in the next day or two when they can open

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Speaker 3: them up.

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Speaker 1: How large an area was impacted on the weekend, Dowted, Litchfield.

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Speaker 3: I haven't got the exact acreag yet, but i'll certainly

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Speaker 3: get that later on today, but.

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Speaker 2: A fairly wide area.

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Speaker 3: You can see as some of the footage that we've

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Speaker 3: been putting up on our social media pages, there's fairly

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Speaker 3: large runs of fire in that area.

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Speaker 1: Which fires were of major concern over the weekend.

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Speaker 3: Primarily, the Lichfield fire was one we were working on mainly,

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Speaker 3: but we also had a large fire in the Gregory

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Speaker 3: National Park that had crews from Catherine go out to support.

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Speaker 3: And there's another one in Tennert Creek that we're managing

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Speaker 3: at the we're not managing, sorry, we're monitoring with the

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Speaker 3: landowner there in Tennant Creek. We had a couple other

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Speaker 3: other minor ones around the place that we're monitoring, but yeah,

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Speaker 3: Litchfield was our main one.

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Speaker 1: And so what is the latest on that fire at

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Speaker 1: Leechfield National Park.

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Speaker 3: We've got a helicopter in the air at the moment

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Speaker 3: doing an assessment and hopefully later on today we'll have

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Speaker 3: some sort of idea of how much longer the crews

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Speaker 3: will need to work. They've done a significant amount of backburning,

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Speaker 3: including Smario wanting to try and tie it into an

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Speaker 3: area so it kind of escape into the recreational merits.

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Speaker 1: And at this point in time, do we know what's

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Speaker 1: caused that fire?

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Speaker 3: I still under investigation, but we're pretty certain that it

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Speaker 3: was suspiciously lit. It was in the bottom end of

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Speaker 3: the park, in an area where you have to have

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Speaker 3: permission to be in and there was certain it wasn't

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Speaker 3: lit by any of the ranges down there, and there

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Speaker 3: was a couple of cars seen in the area that

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Speaker 3: possibly shouldn't have been there.

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Speaker 1: So what's going to be the process now, I guess

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Speaker 1: in terms of trying to work out who's lit it

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Speaker 1: and you know where to from there.

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Speaker 3: Look, the ranges have passed on some information to the

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Speaker 3: police and we'll go from there.

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Speaker 1: Now tell me sorry, you go, no, no saw. What's

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Speaker 1: going to be the focus today, I guess for your

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Speaker 1: crews in terms of, you know, making sure that things

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Speaker 1: stay under control at Lichfield and also any other areas

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Speaker 1: of concern.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Look, we're just in a hoping that this weather today

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Speaker 3: will give us some bit of a respite and give

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Speaker 3: their crew from downtime. They've been working some pretty long

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Speaker 3: hours of recent time, so you know with the fires

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Speaker 3: analys and then up.

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Speaker 2: Here as well.

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Speaker 3: So with the weather today, we're hoping they get some

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Speaker 3: restpite and prepare for later in the week when we

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Speaker 3: expect that the fire weather will increase again. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So by the sounds of a bit of an easing

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Speaker 1: off hopefully for a couple of days, but then it's

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Speaker 1: expected to kick back off.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's correct.

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Speaker 3: We're in the middle of our season and we're coming

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Speaker 3: to the end, not the end, the part where it

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Speaker 3: can get quite nasty. So just trying to let the

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Speaker 3: cruise rest as much as possible, preparing for our next fire.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and tiny digit like, was it all hands on

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Speaker 1: deck on the weekend? Did you have a lot of

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Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the volleys and also the

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Speaker 1: staff working.

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Speaker 3: No, Actually, parks did the lion share of work on this.

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Speaker 3: We certainly supported them with our assets, but there was

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Speaker 3: a lot of park stuff that were called out.

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Speaker 2: And to assist, we had some staff down there.

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Speaker 3: But obviously we're trying to maintain a presence around for

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Speaker 3: any other fires that occur, so we couldn't commit all

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Speaker 3: our resources there, but we've had resources available to respond

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Speaker 3: to anything else that might have occurred.

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Speaker 1: Tony, what's the advice for listeners today? And I guess

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Speaker 1: for the remainder of the week, hoping for those quiet

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Speaker 1: couple of days, But what's the advice?

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Speaker 3: Look, just to really prepare your own properties. We've still

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Speaker 3: got a fair way to go in this season, so

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Speaker 3: just make sure that you've got good fire breaks in.

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Speaker 3: Prepare your houses, to make sure that they've protected, good

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Speaker 3: cleared areas, clear all the flammable material.

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Speaker 2: Away from houses or anything that you don't want to lose.

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Speaker 3: A couple of fires we've been too recently. We've got

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Speaker 3: wrecked cars that people their pride and joys in amongst

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Speaker 3: all the gamber grass and other asses.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, it doesn't.

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Speaker 3: Really help us when we turn up to find all

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Speaker 3: these rex in the.

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Speaker 2: Middle of the grass. If people need, if.

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Speaker 3: They really want to protect them, they need to clear

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Speaker 3: around them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, good advice, well, Tony Fuller. I always appreciate your time, mate,

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Speaker 1: Thank you very much for having a chat with us

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Speaker 1: this morning.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Kurdie, had a good weeknd.

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Speaker 1: You too, Thank you. Yeah, it's Monday. It feels like

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Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like it doesn't probably especially for you

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Speaker 1: guys after you've been bloody busy. Thanks so much for

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Speaker 1: having a chat with us today