Tent Town Springs up as Help Fire Fighters

In this handout image supplied by Stephen Henderson of the County Fire Authority, Firefighters of the CFA Strike Teams (Milawa CFA Tanker) rest after fighting to save the township of Taggety from bush fires on Feb. 8, 2009 in Taggety, near Marysville, in Victoria, Australia. (Photo by Stephen Henderson/CFA via Getty Images)

A tent township has sprung up in less than 48 hours in the regional Victorian city of Ballarat as firefighters and volunteers prepare for catastrophic conditions.

The 131-hectare Victoria Park at Ballarat has become a base camp for hundreds of firies ahead of Wednesday’s (Feb. 28) extreme and catastrophic fire danger across the state’s west, central and northern regions.

Firefighters could be there for more than a month, depending on how the rest of the fire season shakes out.

Victorian County Fire Authority deputy chief officer Rohan Luke said it had been a significant effort to set up the camp in such a short time.

“Base camps normally take a little while to set up,” he told reporters at the site on Wednesday morning Feb. 28.

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“It’s a little township essentially.”

The camp has enough tents for about 300 firefighters and is already half full after the arrival of NSW firefighters on Tuesday evening.

“There was 160 here last night,” Mr. Luke said.

“When we bring night shift crews in here ... there are tents inside air-conditioned marquees so that those sleeping during the day can get some decent sleep.”

Of the 160 campers, about 100 were from the NSW Rural Fire Service and another 25 from NSW Fire Rescue.

Mr. Luke briefed the NSW strike teams on Wednesday morning, Feb. 28, and said morale was high despite many people driving more than 10 hours from Sydney.

“They were able to get a good feed and a good night’s sleep,” he said.

Two of the strike teams will stay put at the base camp for now and another two are headed to a pre-staging area at Ballan, east of Ballarat.

“What we’ve done is separate the task forces to allow them to give maximum footprint to cover a number of areas,” Mr. Luke said.

Authorities’ main concerns are the Bayindeen blaze, northwest of Ballarat, breaking containment lines under forecast high temperatures and strong winds and other blazes that could spark elsewhere from dry lightning.

“We can’t predict where that is,” Mr. Luke said.

“The catastrophic [fire danger rating] in the Wimmera is where the most critical fire weather will be but we can’t take our eyes off the rest of the state either.

“There’s capacity in other parts of the state to ensure that any new fires will be jumped on straight away.”