Far north NSW bushfires: 11Oct 07

The bushfire that has been raging in Bundjalung National Park, south of Evans Head for several weeks now has been brought under containment in the past few days. Rain and severe storms have been present over the past several days, which aided the firefighters in containing the blaze (and preventing me from a good picture of the fires!). Mopping up operations are continuing tomorrow (12 October).

The image is culled from the 250-m “721” MODIS image 0010UTC overpass of the Terra satellite (taken from the NASA MODIS Rapid Response page). A few geographic locations are marked on the image. The fire scar with the Bundjalung blaze is apparent as a red area just to the south of Evans Head. This fire has burnt just over 6000 ha.

Temperatures in the region are expected to be in the low-mid 30s tomorrow, bring the chance of a flare-up of the fires. The Bureau predicts fire dangers of moderate to high...presumably the recent rain has moistened the fuels a bit, lowering the fire danger.

Several major fires have been observed in this general area since mid-August. In the image, several fire scars are seem just south of the Lismore area. Smaller, more faint fire scars are also noted throughout the region.