Mid Lachlan Valley Rural Fire Service has been busy this week attending a number of small fires.
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The first incident occurred at a property on Yarragong Road when a header caught on fire on Sunday.
Inspector Angus Nielsen from Mid Lachlan Valley RFS said a malfunction was the cause of the fire.
“The header had a malfunction and set fire to the paddock, burnt a hectare,” Insp Nielsen said.
Nobody was hurt or injured but the header was completely destroyed.
Insp Nielsen said the Mid Lachlan Valley brigade responded quickly to the fire.
“They caught it within the first couple of acres,” he said.
“The brigade did a tremendous response.”
Insp Nielsen said Monday’s fire is typical of harvest fires, which mostly do a lot of damage to machinery.
While these fires can be prevented by good maintenance and regular inspections of harvest machinery, Insp Nielsen said many of them can be traced to electrical shortening or blown hydraulic hoses which is unpreventable.
“But when you look at the number of headers that are running...one header [fire] in 400 or 500 headers running at the moment, it’s not too bad,” he said.
A shed full of hay on the South Condobolin Road also went up in smoke on Tuesday night.
Superintendent Ken Neville from the RFS Mid Lachlan Valley said the cause of the fire was unknown, but most likely spontaneous combustion.
The Bundaburrah RFS brigade responded to the fire, but found the shed and hay well alight.
“There wasn’t a whole lot we could do,” Supt Neville said.
“The shed and hay were fully engaged in fire.
“They are still burning.”
The brigade remained on site yesterday, monitoring the fire, while the landholder put in additional firebreaks.
Yesterday’s fire danger rating was high, but it was expected to be the worst of the weather this week.
Fifty acres were burnt out near Tullamore on Tuesday when a smouldering stump reignited.
“Even though we had that rain earlier, the fires are starting to run now and will if we get bad weather,” Supt Neville said.
“There is still a risk with all the harvest machinery about.”