Wedge Island bushfire: Residents breathe sigh of relief after firefighters stop blaze from reaching Cervantes

Residents in Cervantes are breathing a sigh of relief, with firefighters managing to hold-off an out-of-control bushfire threatening the town overnight.

Firefighters battling the blaze along Indian Ocean Drive on Thursday night as they managed to stop the fire from reaching Cervantes, after reports it was just 2km from the townsite.

The fire incident controller, Damien Pumphrey, said firefighters were backburning and mulching in a bid to control the blaze.

“The fire has reached Indian Ocean Drive to the south of Cervantes, but our containment lines are holding the fire at the moment,” Mr Pumphrey told ABC Radio on Friday morning.

“We’re doing a lot of work in that area around Cervantes now to make sure any opportunity for that fire to spread (is reduced) and we’re reducing the risk as much as possible.

“We’ve done a significant amount of backburning (like) lighting an edge of fire along both Indian Ocean Drive and Cervantes Road to increase the width of less flammable fuels, essentially between the Cervantes townsite and the fire edge.

“We’ve also done a lot of mulching and flashing and also a large air tank (has come in) to drop in parts of the bushland immediately surrounding Cervantes as well.”

However, hot and windy conditions on Friday are expected to be challenging for firefighters.

Communities in Cervantes, Cooljarloo, Nambung, Grey and Wedge are still bound by emergency alerts and have been warned it is too late to leave.

Anybody in Cervantes who did not evacuate north to Jurien Bay is urged to not evacuate and instead prepare their property and find a safe place with running water and a clear exit route.

“You are in danger and need to act immediately to survive,” an emergency alert said.

“There is a threat to lives and homes.”

The fire, sparked by a fatal crash in Mimegarra on Monday, has destroyed more than 73,000ha of land is moving in a westerly direction.

More than 200 firefighters are on the ground fighting the blaze, with a number of officers conducting backburns near Indian Ocean Drive.

Two large air tankers have also been brought in from interstate to assist firefighting efforts.

A number of roads have been closed including Indian Ocean Drive between Ocean Place and Middleton Boulevard, Bibby Road, Wongonderrah Road, Meadows Roads, Cervantes Road and Munbinea Road south of the Cervantes Road intersection.

Dandaragan shire president Tony O’Gorman said he was “pretty confident” the blaze could be contained over the next few days.

“We’re actually feeling a bit more confident this morning,” he told ABC Radio on Friday morning.

“The latest update I had last night from our Shire CEO is that we’ve got some confidence in the containment lines that we’ve built and we’re expecting that they’re going to hold and that the fire will start to be scaled back and come back into local government control over the coming days.

“We’ve got to give credit to DFES and our volunteers, they started back burning along Indian Ocean Drive ... back towards the fire containment line and we’re hopeful that’s going to hold.

“We’re still looking at another day or two before (people can drive back home) ... that’s up to the incident controller, and we’ll have that discussion this morning to see when those road closures might start to be removed.

“But I’m sure he’s not going to remove any road closures until he’s 100 per cent confident that this fire is out and there’s no risk to anybody moving along those roads.”

DFES Commissioner Darren Klemm said the blaze was about 48km long on Thursday morning, with winds expected to intensify over the next few days.

“We’ve got a pretty extensive fire edge that we’re trying to control, particularly on the western side of the fire,” he told ABC Radio.

“That whole western side of the fire ... is the part that’s really causing us issues at the moment, with these really strong easterly winds that we’ve experienced over the past 12 hours.”

Western Power confirmed up to 18 homes and businesses in Cervantes and Nambung were without power.

The evacuation centre at Jurien Bay Sport and recreation Centre will re-open at 8am today.

The Bureau of Meteorology has a forecast top of 36C today, with morning north-easterly gusts expected to reach up to 35km/h.