Hobart Burns In Worst Ever Conditions

The Age

Friday October 13, 2006

By ANDREW DARBY, HOBART

TEEGAN Speakman wandered around the burnt yard of the family home, past the toppled garden statue, and towards the shell of the tractor shed.

"Everyone was crying," the teenager said. "It was horrible."

Hobart was yesterday hit by the worst spring bushfire in living memory. It ripped through bushland behind suburbs on the Derwent's eastern shore, menaced hundreds of homes and foreshadowed a grim summer.

Last night dozens of fire crews were working to contain the fire in difficult bush terrain with homes still under threat. But like the Speakmans' home at Risdon Vale, where the fire began, almost all homes survived.

Winds howling at more than 90 km/h and 33 degree temperatures sent the flames spiralling eastward through dry gullies. The Speakman family picked up the family dog and evacuated, but came back to their home to find spotfires lighting the yard and outbuildings.

"I couldn't breathe," Ms Speakman said. "I couldn't see in front of me, and the tractor blew up in the shed. Our neighbour was building his house next door, and he was burnt out for the second time. My Dad's house up the road caught fire and we helped to put that out."

Further down the fire's path through the suburbs of Geilston Bay, Flagstaff Gully, Lindisfarne and Warrane, residents defended their homes. Firemen were unable to halt the front, and the fire spotted several kilometres in front during the afternoon.

Electricity services to hundreds of homes were knocked out and a TAFE was evacuated.

The Tasmanian Fire Service said the fire danger index, which was based on temperature, wind and humidity, rated at 100 yesterday - the top of the scale. Temperatures above 28 degrees are a once-in-20-years event in Hobart for October. Yesterday's was the second in a row.

"It's the most severe weather at this time of year I can recall," said senior station officer Danny Reid. Other firemen cast their memories back to 1967, when 62 people died in bushfires.

Across the country fires burnt in South Australia on Kangaroo Island, where the most worrying blaze was a bushfire that damaged about 600 hectares of scrubland and threatened the Flinders Chase National Park. Winds hit 100 km/h, the mercury 40 degrees. A bushfire broke out in the Onkaparinga Hills in Adelaide's south.

In NSW a fire burnt in the Hunter Valley.

© 2006 The Age

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