The Upper Turon Road, Palmers Oaky fire has been declared 'out', however this stark example of how savage the bushfire season has been, is also a reminder that it's not over yet.
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The fire had burned more than 17,400ha of private property, State Forest and National Park. And destroyed 12 properties along with livestock and farming infrastructure. Close to a week after it started on December 4, it jumped the Turon River into the Mid-Western Region and the Cudgegong Rural Fire Service District - which was already into major incident operations.
Crews got the upper hand in early January and it was moved to 'Contained' status, then 'Patrol', before finally declared 'Out' in recent days.
"To get to this point of it being 'out' is certainly no mean feat, it was weeks worth of work that have gone into that. Not only from volunteer RFS firefighters, but also National Parks and Wildlife Services, Fire and Rescue NSW and the local community as well," Inspector Troy Gersback, of the Cudgegong RFS District, said.
"We did see 12 properties destroyed as part of that and countless kilometres of fencing, as well as livestock and other farming infrastructure.
"Although, it's good to be able to walk away from an incident like that without any lives lost. And while the incident is out, the recovery in the communities that were affected is continuing.
"That process is coupled with the ongoing drought, so there's certainly trying times still ahead, but no doubt they'll bounce back."
However, Inspector Gersback said that while it's an important milestone to reach, with ongoing dry and hot conditions paired with the drought - the fire danger remains ever present for the region.
"While it's fantastic to be in a position we're in to be able to declare this incident as 'out', there is still a lot of unburnt country still around not only our region but neighbouring regions as well," he said.
"And with a long period of summer still to go, and even though we might think summer finishes at the end of February, the last few seasons we've had to extend to the bushfire danger period until the back-end of April.
"A lot of that comes down to ongoing drought and just how dry the landscape is. And there's the potential that we'll look to [extend the period] again this year, because we were still seeing fires in late March and early April last year.
"So we're certainly not out of the woods yet and it's not a time for the community to become complacent. Particularly after a few days of decent rainfalls in some parts of the region, it does take a little bit of the sting out of it, but we do need more rain than we've had to be able to say that the threat has well and truly eased."
He encourages landholders and residents to remain vigilant and continue monitoring their properties and report any new ignitions straightaway to Triple-zero (000).
"The quicker we can jump on them, the quicker we can avoid large fires again in other parts of the region," he added.
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