Source: Supplied
Residents on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula are being warned to prepare to leave as as an uncontrolled blaze continues to burn through scrub.
Natasha Price, her three children and her partner were at the beach as the bushfire destroyed their home on Sunday.
Price told ABC Radio the motorhome they lived in on a property was destroyed and the family was unable to reach the home as roads were blocked.
The blaze, which started on Sunday and continued overnight, has destroyed structures and farm sheds, as it continues to burn over 650 hectares.
Emergency services, including 40 Country Fire Service trucks and more than 120 firefighters, are on site trying to stop the blaze that has already destroyed structures, farm sheds and affected vineyards.
Local MP David Basham said it was difficult to see if one property destroyed by fire on Nakita Road was a home, as the only remaining structure was roof iron.
On Sunday, the CFS issued a “leave now” warning, but by Monday that had been changed to “prepare to leave”.
That warning told residents to prepare to leave the zone around Nankita Road, Cleland Gully Road, Stones Ford Road, Heifer Road and Through Road near Tooperang and Nangkita, 10 kilometres east of Mount Compass.
When news emerged of the fire on Sunday, Finniss MP and Liberal Climate and Environment spokesman David Basham rushed to a dairy farm impacted by the blaze to help its owners, fighting alongside several locals including the property owner Perrin Hicks and his two adult sons.
“It was pretty scary up there, it’s a challenge to get there and a challenge to get back out of there if you need to,” Basham told InDaily.
The property is about a kilometre from where Basham formerly had a farm and “29 years ago to the day a fire went rapidly through the area” and locals descended to help him fight it.
“I knew where it was, we used to lease the property… it was pretty windy through to around 11 o’clock and there was an awful lot of smoke,” Basham said.
He returned to his Victor Harbor home about 12.30am but returned to check in with locals on Monday morning, amid concerns a wind change could turn the fire toward Mount Compass.
South Australian Police and South Australian Ambulance Service were supporting firefighters as they tried to control the fire also using firebombers and observational aircraft.
“Firefighters and incident management personnel from SACFS and supporting agencies are working hard in inaccessible terrain including scrub and plantation to continue to extinguish the fire,” the CFS’s latest update said.
Firefighters would focus efforts between Cleland Gully and Nangkita roads as they tried to extinguish the fire ahead of a wind change forecast for around lunchtime today.
Both roads have been closed.
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