Burning bales of hay have kept firefighters at a Chapmans Road property ravaged on Thursday afternoon after an angle grinder ignited a fire in a shed.
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Fire and Rescue NSW and the NSW Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS) Orana Team hit the fire hard after it spread to a house, adjoining structures and grass on the property on the outskirts of Dubbo.
About 50 firefighters converged on the scene where heated gas cylinders and 44-gallon drums containing “miscellaneous liquids” exacerbated the emergency.
Fire and Rescue NSW established a 150-metre exclusion zone that was lifted once it had extinguished fire in buildings and the cylinders and drums cooled on Thursday.
NSW RFS Orana Team volunteers ferried water to the scene and fought grass fires.
But fire burning underneath bales of hay kept the volunteers at the property across Thursday night and Friday.
Early Friday afternoon NSW RFS Orana Team district officer David Nicholson was expecting it to be out within hours.
Across Thursday night six volunteer firefighters “monitored and cooled down” the hay bales.
“Then the sun got to them and dried them out,” Mr Nicholson said. “The thing with hay is it burns underneath. So you’ve actually got to stir it up.”
As he spoke, earth-moving equipment belonging to Dubbo Regional Council was helping four volunteers douse the hidden fire.
“Due to the efforts of the volunteer firefighters the fire did not spread into neighbouring grassland areas,” the district officer said. “ They did an amazing job.”
Mr Nicholson said Fire and Rescue NSW had determined the cause of the fire.
“Late Thursday afternoon fire started in a shed from an angle grinder and that fire then spread to the house, the adjoining structures and the grass around the structure,” he said.
NSW Police report two occupants of the property were not injured.
