A BURNING vehicle almost led to disaster for OneFortyOne (OFO) after the fire spread from the car into a pine plantation on Friday morning.
Country Fire Service (CFS) crews and firefighters from OFO were alerted to the blaze in an area on Black Flat Road, Caroline just before 5am by a logging crew who spotted the flames.
OFO fire manager Justin Cook said the crew – who were on their way to work – were quick to alert the authorities so they could respond quickly.
“It was still dark when they were heading to work, which would have made it easier to see the fire,” Mr Cook said.
“It turned out somebody had set fire to a car on the fire break.”
A pair of CFS crews were the first to arrive on the scene and were able to contain the fire to around 0.7 hectares, before OFO firefighters arrived.
“By the time we got there, CFS basically had the fire under control and not long after we arrived their resources departed and left us to black-out the fire,” he said.
Mr Cook said while conditions were not hot on Friday morning, a wind change gave the fire what it needed to spread into the pine plantation.
“Thursday was obviously a very hot day and then around midnight there was a wind change, which cooled the temperature, but due to the strength of the wind the fire spread into our plantation,” Mr Cook said.
South Australian Police also attended the deliberately lit blaze and are still investigating to try and find those responsible.
Mr Cook said cars are often abandoned and set alight in pine plantations, causing frustration for the entire forestry industry.
“We spend a lot of time and effort growing the plantation and we do not want to have it destroyed by fire, in this case we were lucky to control the fire,” he said.
“The general community is very good about fire safety, but then you get people who want to destroy cars and it is probably one of our largest risks when it comes to humans causing fires in the plantation.”
Mr Cook said it is a timely reminder the fire season has nearly arrived.
“If something like this happened in January or February, the potential for more damage is significant, so we are really asking that this sort of activity does not occur,” he said.
He said while only a small area of the plantation was damaged, any trees that are burnt will have to be harvested in the imminent future.
“You can see a number of trees are burnt at the base, so any trees like that will die, therefore our plan will be to undertake a salvage harvesting operation, to recover the value before they die and are worthless,” Mr Cook said.
Anyone who may have witnessed Friday’s fire incident is asked to report it online at www.crimestopperssa.com.au or contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
