Tweed Coast Bushfire brigades will open their doors to the general public on Saturday morning for their annual open day.
The Tweed Coast Brigade at Pottsville and the Cudgen brigade will both have their stations open for the general public to inspect and find out all they need to know about bushfire safety.
An open day will also be held in the carpark at Knox Park, Murwillumbah on Saturday from 10am to 4pm.
The open day is timely for the Tweed Coast Brigades who have already been hard at work this season with a major fire in the Cudgen Nature Reserve from last Friday through to Monday this week.
Far North Coast team manager superintendent David Cook said the fire, which started on Friday, was finally contained on Monday, although it was smoking a little but that was to be expected, as it had got into the peat.
Supt Cook said the fire had burned in 95 hectares of the Cudgen Nature reserve and properties had been threatened in the Depot Road and Coast Road area. He said a separate fire had ignited in that area on Saturday and police and special fire investigators were investigating the matters. There had also been a fire at Fingal over the weekend.
Teams from Cudgen, Bilambil, Murwillumbah, Tweed Coast, Burringbar and the NSW Fire & Rescue and National Parks and Wildlife crews had battled Cudgen fires over the four days. He said, as the nature reserve was involved, the National Parks had been monitoring the situation and helping formulate the best plans to help the local wildlife escape the flames and so far there did not seem to be any animal casualties, although checks are still being made.
And despite the minor showers of rain this week, Supt Cook said the fire danger was still dangerously high.
“We have been in bush-fire danger since September 1, you can’t light a fire in the open without a permit and all permits have been suspended until after we get some moisture and then we will review the conditions,” he said.
“We are urging everyone to take care.”
The open days start from 10am.
