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Some of the bush fire destruction in and around Nymboida. Image: Lynne Mowbray

Bushfire update (at time of going to print)

Lynne Mowbray|

In an interview with The Independent (at the time of going to print on Monday) with the Clarence Valley Fire Control centre at Ulmarra, NSW RFS district manager superintendent Stuart Watts said that there were still four fires burning that are being controlled, with a total of 326,000 hectares of bush burnt.

“We have approximately 150 fire fighting crews from within NSW RFS and also from Tasmania and the Country Fire Authority, Victoria and supported by a large contingent of interstate resources assisting in the incident management team here in Ulmarra,” Superintendent Watts said.

“The biggest fire front is the Liberation Fire Trail, fire, which burnt through the village of Nymboida on Friday November 8.

“There are some strategic back burning operations going on, south of the Clarence Valley Local Government area around Nana Glen and west out to Lowana, out towards Dorrigo and also up the Orara Way around the locality of Kremnos.

“The next couple of days we should have fairly favourable conditions to assist in our containment, but given how dry it is, there is no iron clad guarantee that these fires will not run.

“We don’t need much wind or much heat for these fires to break containment and cause a severe fire to impact towards any built assets, but what we’re asking people to do is visit the NSW Rural Fire Service website and download a bushfire survival plan and monitor the Fires Near Me app on smart phones and take notice of the advice being issued,” he said.

Superintendent Watts said that at this point in time there is no official number of properties (homes) which have been lost in the Nymboida fire.

“Our building impact assessment teams are still in the field and the RFS has increased the number of BIA teams to complete that part of the process in a more speedier time and so we’re still working through that,” he said.