Five strike teams from the Southern Tablelands rural fire zone have scrambled to help battle the Carwoola blaze.
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The fire broke out east of Queanbeyan about lunchtime Friday and raced quickly to Carwoola and then toward Hoskinstown and Rossi.
It was fanned by strong winds and 34-degree heat. As at 6pm Saturday had burnt through 3134 hectares and reportedly destroyed up to 15 homes.
Southern Tablelands RFS zone superintendent, Peter Alley said five strike teams from Goulburn and Yass, each comprising 20 to 25 personnel, six vehicles and three tankers, helped the firefighting effort across three fronts.
A Goulburn Mulwaree strike team worked well into Friday night. Superintendent Alley also joined a 20 to 30-strong incident management team including personnel from the south coast and many other regions.
Numerous crews from the Southern Highlands also joined the effort.
An emergency order was issued at 3pm Friday and residents around Carwoola and Captains Flat were told it was too late to leave their homes, the Canberra Times reported.
By evening the blaze was downgraded to ‘watch and act.’ An army of aerial support, including large water bombers from the ACT and Victoria and a fixed wing aircraft from Goulburn, helped seize the upper hand.
“It was a very fast moving grass fire with a number of subdivisions in its path. There were a lot of homes to protect,” he said.
“We are not sure how many have been lost at this stage. We’ve confirmed that six have been destroyed but there could well be more.”
However, firefighters managed to save 56 homes.
Mr Alley said the fire was now contained and at ‘advice’ level.
“We had rain on the fire ground overnight and crews managed to get in with graders and dozers to build containment lines. There were still some smoking trees but they’ve cleared them up now,” he said.
Patrols would continue for some days but the RFS would continue monitoring the ground for several weeks at least, Mr Alley said.