A massive fire burning in the Northern Territory's Barkly region is rapidly moving through land where it's unable to be stopped, after flames breached multiple containment lines overnight. A wind change has made things more difficult on the ground as crews work around the clock to defend the town of Tennant Creek and its surrounds.
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00:00 The ground pulled out as crews from near and far worked to keep the wall of fire away.
00:08 Chas Cole, a 69-year-old contractor, one of dozens brought in to try stop the fire in
00:14 its tracks.
00:15 Big effort.
00:16 Yeah, big effort's gone in now.
00:19 Yeah.
00:20 And they're all doing their best with what they've got.
00:22 Community spirit and also stations, contractors.
00:27 Yeah, everyone's pulling together.
00:30 The tireless work now more important than ever after multiple containment lines were
00:35 breached overnight as powerful easterly winds took hold.
00:39 The crews were working hard on that to try and stop it.
00:42 There was a lot of aerial bombing as well as some attempts with some machinery to get
00:47 in front of it.
00:48 But the fire was just running too fast.
00:52 Today is the day that we thought would be the most critical, that we've kept a close
00:58 eye on and that we've been planning towards for the last week.
01:01 So those resources will stay here for as long as they are required.
01:07 Despite aerial attacks and earth movers on the ground, fire fronts now stretch to the
01:13 north and south of Tennant Creek.
01:15 Out here, 40 kilometres to the east of town, vegetation is being cleared to strengthen
01:20 the fire breaks.
01:22 It's one of the many strategies being employed to prevent the fire breaching the town's edge.
01:29 Some remote outstations in the Barclay have already been evacuated and more are on standby.
01:34 But the mayor is urging residents not to panic.
01:37 The best thing is to make sure everyone's calm.
01:41 And I know that people are worried because of other fires and the huge fires that happened
01:46 in our nation over the last year or so ago.
01:51 Reports show Tennant Creek is not in the current line of fire, but both the Stuart and Barclay
01:56 highways are facing potential closures.
01:59 [BLANK_AUDIO]