Kooralbyn residents are readying to either fight or flee a bushfire which has been burning on the outskirts of their township for days.
Back burning and water bombing secured the township on Tuesday night, but the large bushfire will continue to burn for days to come, firefighters say.
Rural Fire Service incident controller Kaye Healing said the Scenic Rim had, so far, dodged a bullet thanks to favourable conditions that had allowed her crews to keep the fire within containment lines.
But she said some properties were in an “absolutely shocking” state of preparedness.
“There was the potential for far more losses if we’d had more severe fire weather,” Ms Healing said on Wednesday morning.
Geoff Squires was among those who could see smoke rising from the bush from his home. He first saw it on Sunday but said the smoke “really picked up” on Tuesday.
Mr Squires said on Wednesday morning that he was not yet “particularly concerned”, just monitoring the situation. But he did have a contingency plan.
“My plan is to jump in that caravan and get out of here,” he said.
Mr Squires was worried there was only one road into the township.
“There’s one 10 kilometre stretch of road to get out of here,” he said.
“What do you do if it gets blocked?”
On Tuesday, Queensland’s new 10,000-litre capacity Large Air Tanker was deployed for the first time in the south-east to drop a line of fire retardant. This, combined with that night’s back burning efforts, was enough to secure Kooralbyn.
“We had 18 appliances on the ground back burning,” Ms Healing said.
“The back burn was about 7 kilometres long and it took about 10 hours all up. It was effective, so this morning we are in the process of just monitoring and mopping up and making sure nothing is getting across the break.”
She said five crews were on the ground as “it won't take much for it to get across that break”.
The fire continues to run in “broken” and inaccessible country, full of ridges and valleys and creek lines, and has so far burnt about 5,300 hectares.
Firefighting efforts were focussed on the fire’s second “predominant front”, around the Green Hills Road area. Ms Healing said crews were gathering intelligence on the ground and from the air in preparation for a back burn on Wednesday night.
A dilapidated and uninhabited building, or “some sort of shed”, had been burnt several days ago but no property had been lost so far, or was under any threat.
Firefighters are expecting “a good week of some level of activity on the fire ground”, and will be looking to make the most of current conditions.
“At the moment we’re in good shape,” Ms Healing said.
“The concern that we’ve got is that we know towards the end of the week, and early next week, temperatures heat up again and the relative humidity drops.
“So while we've got favourable conditions over the next couple of days after that, as the moisture burns off completely, the potential for relights is certainly there.”
The RFS incident controller urged residents to monitor the situation and prepare themselves and their properties.
She said under the favourable conditions, firefighters had been able to help people remove leaf litter from their gutters and yards.
“But at the end of the day, if we get a hard running fire, we don't have time to do that,” she said.
Duncan Mackenzie was among the locals who said they had prepared and would try to defend their properties in a worst case scenario.
“We’re okay at the moment, but if the winds swing around we’d be in trouble,” he said. “Our property backs onto virgin bush.”
“I’m a stay and fight it sorta guy. If I can, I’ll have an argument with it and try to save the property.”
Among the volunteer firefighters on the ground on Wednesday were Rick Kennish, Wayne Joce and Stuart Hywel-Evans from Tamborine.
Mr Joce, a retired veteran, said it was all they could do to monitor the situation.
“Look at where it’s burning,” he said, pointing to the wooded hills.
“There’s no way we could get in there”.
