Glenorchy Road Rat Point Fire - update #10 fire contained, crew patrolling overnight

19:30, Wednesday 11 January 2017

The fire at Rat Point, which has cut power to Glenorchy and affected access to the Queenstown-Glenorchy Road has been contained after a co-ordinated and sustained aerial and ground attack by fire crews today.

Up to eight helicopters with monsoon buckets and 50 ground crew from all over Otago were deployed across the day to control the fire which spread across about 150ha of mostly native scrub and trees on very steep terrain.

A ground crew will continue to patrol the area overnight and further crews will be deployed tomorrow to fully extinguish the fire and ensure that hotspots are monitored and dampened down.

Weather conditions are set to remain changeable tomorrow with sustained winds up to 25km/hr forecast however rain is predicted for later tonight.

Fire crews will be rotated as the operation is expected to last for three to five days.

Aurora Energy has advised that the 335 customers affected in the Glenorchy, Kinloch, Moke Lake, Paradise and Routeburn areas, can expect to be without power for at least a further 24-hours, with the possibility of this extending out to 48-hours or longer.

Delta has begun work on the power poles which received extensive damage in the fire, and are also assessing longer term contingency measures.

Otago Rural Fire Authority Incident Controller Phil Marsh said that it had been a testing day contending with steep terrain, high temperatures and strong winds but all of the crews, pilots and members of the incident management team had done a superb job in restricting the fire from spreading.

“Emergency services in this region are predominantly staffed with volunteers so we thank both those people and their organisations for being so supportive.

“We’re very grateful to everyone for their efforts and to the public for the support that we’ve received. The changeable weather conditions meant that we had to close the Queenstown-Glenorchy Road a couple of times to ensure public safety so we appreciate people’s patience.”

The next update will be issued at approximately 8:30am tomorrow morning unless the situation changes. For more information and updates please visit www.qldc.govt.nz or the Queenstown Lakes District Council Facebook page.

ENDS

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