Fire risk in centre.

Certainly agree with you on the growth of the grass Eric.

In recent thread 88531 I put up some pictures of grass catching around our cat converter etc.

Good thing was though that slow speeds seemed to cause less tearing of grass and less pick up.
Also caused a lot less heat generation.

Interesting that even though the grass was constantly there , there was never any smell of smouldering or heating of grass to ignition temperature.

We carried water in a cheap 5lt water sprayer with nozzle slightly enlarged.
Makes a good fire extinguisher and also fills up the kettle.




Image Could Not Be Found

Timely advice, Eric.

Have just done the Plenty & Sandover highways over past 10 days, on way to Yulara, and the amount of dry feed is impressive.

Also a lot of recently burnt country south of the Alice, and on western end of the Sandover. Not good in the pastoral areas, as it may leave some stations a bit light for feed, going into the summer.

Made picking a campsite difficult too. Spent one night on the Sandover, and made camp at the end of a side drain, where the grader had levelled, and cleared a small area. Not good for those that like a camp fire.

Robin's idea of a spray bottle is good too, as a small dry powder extinguisher often stops a fire quickly, but doesn't cool the area, and re-ignition is a real threat. Jack Absalom used to recommend a shaken can of beer to do the same job, but have you checked the price of beer lately??

Bob.

Queensland is the same in many areas right now - we haven't been driving in grass but have camped near heaps of tinder dry areas - when picking a camp spot, consideration must be given to what you might do if you woke up in the early hours to find flames approaching - it happens - and just last week I found a small fire burning in an unexpected spot (left over from a nearby controlled burn-off) - with a change in wind direction, anything is possible.