Authorities expect weather conditions to ease today
A bushfire which has destroyed several houses on Tasmania’s east coast has been brought under control. Evacuated residents are now waiting for permission to return to their homes to find out what damage has been done.
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TVTranscript
00:00 Yesterday firefighters were battling the blaze in this area.
00:05 Twice it jumped control lines that they'd built, but a favourable wind change in the
00:09 afternoon allowed them to get on top of the fire, finish those containment lines.
00:14 And firefighters say the fire is basically now in a box and that's where they want to
00:19 keep it.
00:20 There were multiple aircraft working on the fire yesterday, more than 50 firefighters.
00:26 Today they'll be focusing on blacking out and mopping up.
00:30 Now for residents what they want is to get back and check if their properties have survived.
00:36 Firefighters say that's not likely to be until this afternoon.
00:39 They've got rapid assessment crews going through the area, checking what hazards there are,
00:44 making assessments of damage.
00:46 At the moment firefighters are only saying that two homes have been destroyed and a shed
00:51 on three separate properties.
00:53 But they say there could be further losses, but they won't confirm that until they've
00:57 done the full assessment.
00:59 Now attention is likely to turn now to some of the access issues that come up every time
01:04 there's a fire in this area.
01:08 There's one road in and there's one road out and as happened a few nights ago, the fire
01:12 crossed that road and trapped residents behind it.
01:14 They had to wait on a beach for hours until they were escorted out.
01:19 There's long been a push for a bridge to be built so that there's another escape route
01:22 and that's likely to pick up steam after this fire event.
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