Bushfire Relief Funding for Thousands of Affected Hunter Residents

BY JESSICA ROUSE

Thousands of people affected by bushfires in the Hunter will now be able to apply for disaster relief funding.

The State Government has announced disaster assistance is now available to Hunter residents affected by the Chichester Dam and Main Creek Road fires in Dungog, and the Mount Helen fire in the Upper Hunter.

The assistance for eligible residents, local councils and producers includes:
- help for eligible people whose homes or belongings have been damaged
- support for affected local councils to help with the costs of cleaning up and restoring damaged essential public assets
- concessional interest rate loans for small businesses, primary producers and non-profit organisations
- freight subsidies for primary producers, and
- grants to eligible non-profit organisations.

Upper Hunter MP Michael Johnsen said thousands of homes and properties were damaged and so the funding will go a long way.

"It will assist both councils and private landowners to be able to recover things like fencing, you might need feed and stock, things like that and those sorts of assistance measures are very very important to help people recover,"

"Affected landowners and councils when they apply will be able to see exactly what their damage requirements and improvements are and they'll be able to see when they apply when they will be eligible for. The best thing to do is have a look at the website," said Michael Johnsen.

To see if you're eligible and for more information head to the Australian Government's Disaster Assist website: www.disasterassist.gov.au and the NSW emergency information and response website at www.emergency.nsw.gov.au

Image MJF Productions.

Fire Crews Busy on Hunter Blazes

BY IAN CROUCH and JESSICA ROUSE

UPDATE: 2:15pm

The fire at Main Creek Dungog has been downgraded back to ADVICE.

Crews are working to keep the blaze within containment lines.

UPDATE: 2pm

RFS crews are attending to a fire at Main Creek Dungog which is currently at WATCH and ACT level.

It's burnt through around 14 hectares on Main Creek Road and is yet to be controlled.

Fire crews are on the ground trying to control the blaze as there are isolated properties in the area.

James Morrison from the RFS says at this stage no properties are directly under threat, but the situation could change in an instant - if you live along Killarney Road or Skimmings Gap Road the advice is to implement your bush fire survival plan now.

Meanwhile,

There is still a small bushfire on Old Maitland Road at Abermain and another on the Abermain Fire Trail which has burnt through around 2 hectares.

EARLIER:

Firefighters are working to contain a number of bush fires across the Hunter.

RFS crews have been called to a 1 hectare fire on Old Maitland Road at Abermain.

Water bombers have been called in to assist with a 14 hectare fire at MAIN CREEK north east of Dungog and another 14 hectare blaze at Chichester Dam.

And, a fire on the Golden Highway at Denman is now under control after burning through 5 hectares.

Chichester Dam Overflow

BY RACHEL STORER

Chichester Dam supplies water to the Lower Hunter. Image: theherald.com.au 

After a very wet weekend in the Hunter, Chichester Dam, north of Dungog has overflowed.

The spill caused minor flooding in the area with no considerable damage.

After an extremely hot, dry summer the dam saw no increase in levels for 109 days.

The first day of Autumn saw the first bump to levels and there have been consistent rises since.

Nick Kaiser, from Hunter Water, said that Chichester dam rose from 65% capacity to 100% in just three days.

"It's been absolutely pouring buckets up around the catchment, which might not be good news for picnickers, but is great news for our dam levels," he said.

"The consistent rain has boosted our storage and now our total water storage, which is Grahamstown Dam and Chichester Dam, are currently at 82 percent."

Mr Kaiser says that Chichester is designed to spill and that the rain forecasted this week shouldn't cause any risk of flooding.

"There's no risk. More of that water is going to go back down and flow into the rivers. The good news is that we'll have more water flowing into the Williams River which we can then pump into Grahamstown Dam," he said.