A grass fire burnt eight hectares and destroyed a shed and caravan about six kilometres east of Springton last Thursday.
The fire was sparked by a tractor slashing grass shortly before 3 p.m. on Church Road.
Barossa Council’s Australian of the Year and Springton identity, Mr David Herbig was out on his daily walk last Friday, taking in the aftermath of the most recent fire to strike the Barossa district.
Mr Herbig, who has lived in Springton his whole life, said that he was fortunate to have forgone his walk in the area on Thursday so as to not have been caught up in the incident. “I was in Hahndorf yesterday,” he said.
“Someone in the supermarket said, there’s a fire out on Church Road. I knew where it was because I walk here a lot.”
Mr Herbig was thankful that the fire didn’t spread further towards his beloved town of Springton.
“We’re lucky we’ve got the CFS,” he said.
Another person surveying the damage on Friday morning was Mr Glen Monaghan, owner of Stonegarden Vineyard, situated just to the west of the fire ground.
“It scares me whenever I hear there’s a fire in the area,” said Mr Monaghan, who had travelled to Springton from his residence in Adelaide to assess the situation.
“If the wind was going the other direction we would have been in the firing line.”
CFS crews from Springton, Eden Valley, Mount Pleasant and Palmer attended the blaze, with resources totalling 60 personnel and 12 trucks, as well as water bombers performing 11 drops on the site.
Barossa CFS Group Officer and Incident Controller, Matt Bain said the water bombers were integral to getting the fire under control.
“They were exceptional out there, running up and down the roadside, basically stopping it crossing Church Road,” he said.
“Temperature-wise it was alright, but we kept getting gusty winds and it was certainly pushing it fairly quickly at times.
“It got very close to at least one house but we managed to save that one.”
With bush fire season already off to an unfortunately busy start, Mr Bain said CFS teams are sparing no resources when tackling incidents.
“It’s the way the Barossa Group works now, because of the conditions we just throw everything at it,” he said.
“It is just so dry out that way, it has been for several weeks or months now. It’s really dried off and it certainly doesn’t take much to get a fire going.
“People just need to be so careful.”
