The inaccessible country cannot be reached by vehicle, so volunteers took off on foot, walking 1.2 kilometres to fight the fire, armed with water and rake-hoes.

They were also unable to communicate back to base as there is no phone or pager coverage in the ranges.

“We had a surveillance plane come from Adelaide to make sure there was nothing more occurring, but that’s all we could do to monitor them,” Gilbert Group deputy group officer Andrew Allchurch said.

“We had a total of five units from Riverton, Tothill and Waterloo, with 15 personnel, and they all had to walk.”

It took about three hours to contain the fire, which burned about one acre of land.

“We had a similar fire about a year ago and had 100 personnel walk up the hill.”

Marrabel fire

Last week was a busy period for local firefighters, with a fire at Hamilton, just south of Marrabel, on Monday, January 25, burning about six hectares.

On Monday, January 25, a fire near Marrabel burned about 76.3 hectares of stubble and scrub and resulted in water bombers and helicopter surveillance arriving from Adelaide.

This fire was attended by about 25 units as well as about 15 farm fire units plus the Gilbert Bulk Water Carrier donated by Roaring 40s wind farms.

WATERLOO FIRE

Stubble caught alight at Waterloo on Thursday afternoon which was attended by Waterloo and Tothill brigades.