{"id":207103,"date":"2018-04-24T21:18:23","date_gmt":"2018-04-24T11:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=207103"},"modified":"2020-08-05T10:11:29","modified_gmt":"2020-08-05T00:11:29","slug":"fire-scare-at-dingo-sanctuary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2018\/04\/24\/fire-scare-at-dingo-sanctuary\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire Scare At Dingo Sanctuary"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
“Dingo” Simon Stretton on the tractor he used to help put out the fire at the Sanctuary on Sunday<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

April 24, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

Durong Dingo Sanctuary’s\u00a0Simon Stretton is full of praise for the firefighters who brought a wild grassfire under control on Sunday, just metres away from his animal enclosures.<\/p>\n

“Dingo” Simon – as he is fondly known – has only recently been discharged after spending 10 weeks at Kingaroy, Murgon and Toowoomba hospitals.<\/p>\n

While he was away, a friend looked after the sanctuary, doing whipper-snipping, mowing and slashing which meant the property was well-prepared when a fire broke out a few doors away on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Simon told southburnett.com.au<\/strong> he first became aware of the fire when he saw smoke rising through the trees and going up into the sky.<\/p>\n

“But I couldn’t see any flames,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Then I went outside and heard the crackling of a fire coming from a neighbour’s property.<\/p>\n

“I rang my neighbour Lachy who lives two kilometres away up on higher ground. Annette said he was out there with his fire-fighting unit trying to battle the flames.<\/p>\n

“So I jumped on my tractor to help.”<\/p>\n

The fire brigade had already been called.<\/p>\n

Simon said he drove his tractor to his neighbour’s property and then down the driveway where he could see a red urban brigade fire truck through the smoke.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The flames in front of him were less than a metre high so he dropped the bucket of his tractor on to the edge of the fire and pushed along it to try to smother the flames.<\/p>\n

“This can be tricky, especially with some grass fires that emit a certain smoke that can blind and suffocate you, so I make sure I go as fast as I can then pull away to catch my breath and start again,” he said.<\/p>\n

He said the fire truck began to follow him, putting out flames he had missed.<\/p>\n

Simon said he then looked up and saw the fire front had moved northwards and was heading towards his dingo enclosures.<\/p>\n

“I madly turned around, drove back over the creek and up to the back of the enclosures,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Fortunately I had just slashed a five metre fire break on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“The grass fire jumped and began burning into a new enclosure I have been building.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Fortunately there were no dingos there and the grass was very low so the fire was moving slowly.<\/p>\n

“I drove back to the house and grabbed my knapsack, filled it up with water and walked back to the new enclosure.<\/p>\n

“I got on top of the fire with my knapsack but I was stuffed.<\/p>\n

“An urban truck then drove through the fence, along the back of the enclosures, down over the creek and set up near a dam to stop the fire spreading any further.<\/p>\n

“The truck came in between the fire and my dingos. All I can say is thank you!”<\/p>\n

Simon said he believes the fire began on a property on McPhee Road and then burned in a north-westerly direction towards McLean Road.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He admits that when he finally got back to his home, he simply collapsed.<\/p>\n

“You don’t have time to think if what you’re doing is safe or if it is dangerous. You just have to do stuff,” he said.<\/p>\n

The fires came within six metres of the dingo enclosures,<\/p>\n

“I thought at one stage that three of the female dingos had escaped to get away from the fire and the noise, maybe climbed over a barrier or electrocuted themselves on a fence,” Simon said.<\/p>\n

“But when I checked later, I found they had all dug holes in their enclosures and were hiding. The females had all gone underground and didn’t come out until it started raining.”<\/p>\n

One of the male dingos panicked and did get out of his pen but was stopped from escaping by a second fence around the enclosure area.<\/p>\n

Simon said it would have been a lot worse if he had not been working for years to keep the grass down around the enclosures.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“We all survived. No one escaped and no one got hurt,” he said.<\/p>\n

However, he said one neighbour had lost about 50 per cent of his pasture and would probably have to buy in feed for his cattle during winter.<\/p>\n

More than a dozen fire trucks – urban and rural – attended the blaze and successfully protected at least six houses.<\/p>\n

“I am very grateful for everything they did,” Simon said.<\/p>\n

[Photos: Durong Dingo Sanctuary]<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A male dingo watches cautiously from his enclosure as embers still smoulder a day after the fire ripped through properties at Durong<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
The grass fire entered a new enclosure that Simon has been developing at the sanctuary, but fortunately no dingoes were being housed there at the time<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Durong Dingo Sanctuary’s\u00a0Simon Stretton is full of praise for the firefighters who brought a wild grassfire under control on Sunday, just metres away from his animal enclosures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":207119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,3],"tags":[150,90],"yoast_head":"\nFire Scare At Dingo Sanctuary - www.southburnett.com.au<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Durong Dingo Sanctuary's\u00a0Simon Stretton is full of praise for the firefighters who brought a wild grassfire under control on Sunday, just metres away from his animal enclosures.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2018\/04\/24\/fire-scare-at-dingo-sanctuary\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fire Scare At Dingo Sanctuary - www.southburnett.com.au\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Durong Dingo Sanctuary's\u00a0Simon Stretton is full of praise for the firefighters who brought a wild grassfire under control on Sunday, just metres away from his animal enclosures.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2018\/04\/24\/fire-scare-at-dingo-sanctuary\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"southburnett.com.au\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-04-24T11:18:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-08-05T00:11:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/20180422fire2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"385\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Anne Miller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Anne Miller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2018\/04\/24\/fire-scare-at-dingo-sanctuary\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2018\/04\/24\/fire-scare-at-dingo-sanctuary\/\",\"name\":\"Fire Scare At Dingo Sanctuary - www.southburnett.com.au\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-04-24T11:18:23+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-05T00:11:29+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/#\/schema\/person\/d43a5027bdddc95f54e9c6274d8a57ae\"},\"description\":\"Durong Dingo Sanctuary's\u00a0Simon Stretton is full of praise for the firefighters who brought a wild grassfire under control on Sunday, just metres away from his animal enclosures.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2018\/04\/24\/fire-scare-at-dingo-sanctuary\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/\",\"name\":\"southburnett.com.au\",\"description\":\"Kingaroy and South Burnett News\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/#\/schema\/person\/d43a5027bdddc95f54e9c6274d8a57ae\",\"name\":\"Anne Miller\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/author\/anne-miller\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Fire Scare At Dingo Sanctuary - www.southburnett.com.au","description":"Durong Dingo Sanctuary's\u00a0Simon Stretton is full of praise for the firefighters who brought a wild grassfire under control on Sunday, just metres away from his animal enclosures.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2018\/04\/24\/fire-scare-at-dingo-sanctuary\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Fire Scare At Dingo Sanctuary - www.southburnett.com.au","og_description":"Durong Dingo Sanctuary's\u00a0Simon Stretton is full of praise for the firefighters who brought a wild grassfire under control on Sunday, just metres away from his animal enclosures.","og_url":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2018\/04\/24\/fire-scare-at-dingo-sanctuary\/","og_site_name":"southburnett.com.au","article_published_time":"2018-04-24T11:18:23+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-08-05T00:11:29+00:00","og_image":[{"width":620,"height":385,"url":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/20180422fire2.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Anne Miller","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Anne Miller","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2018\/04\/24\/fire-scare-at-dingo-sanctuary\/","url":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2018\/04\/24\/fire-scare-at-dingo-sanctuary\/","name":"Fire Scare At Dingo Sanctuary - www.southburnett.com.au","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-04-24T11:18:23+00:00","dateModified":"2020-08-05T00:11:29+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/#\/schema\/person\/d43a5027bdddc95f54e9c6274d8a57ae"},"description":"Durong Dingo Sanctuary's\u00a0Simon Stretton is full of praise for the firefighters who brought a wild grassfire under control on Sunday, just metres away from his animal enclosures.","inLanguage":"en-AU","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2018\/04\/24\/fire-scare-at-dingo-sanctuary\/"]}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/#website","url":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/","name":"southburnett.com.au","description":"Kingaroy and South Burnett News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-AU"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/#\/schema\/person\/d43a5027bdddc95f54e9c6274d8a57ae","name":"Anne Miller","url":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/author\/anne-miller\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207103"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207103"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":269859,"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207103\/revisions\/269859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}