RFS warns of fire risk after slasher causes blaze near Reids Flat Rd

Local RFS brigades received a Triple Zero call around 4.50pm on Wednesday, with reports of a fire on a property on Reids Flat Road, approximately nine kilometres south east of Cowra.

NSW RFS Canobolas Zone operations officer, Brett Bowden said tankers from the Neila, Waugoola, Wattamondara and Kangaroo Flat brigades attended the scene.

"The fire only burned around three hectares of grass and it was started by a slasher," Mr Bowden said.

"It was operating in a paddock and the slasher got caught up in a little bit of wire, once it hit that, it caused a spark and that spark started a fire and away it went."

Mr Bowden said crews were able to control the blaze relatively quickly.

"Only about 40 minutes or so and they marked it as contained," he said.

"Then by about 8pm just about all the units had departed the site, it was a fairly quick job."

However, Mr Bowden said the blaze was an example of how quickly fires can start in current conditions.

"Particularly when the fuel, the grasslands, is getting so dry," he said.

"The danger we've got at the moment, we've got the most amount of grass in paddocks and across the landscape that we've seen for probably 10 or 15 years... where it ignites relatively easily and the intensity from any fire then is quite high and in the right sort of conditions, they will be difficult to control."

With temperatures set to reach the early 40s over the weekend and into next week, Mr Bowden said any fires could be difficult to control.

"Relative humidity is probably getting down towards the teens, maybe even getting close to single digits in the middle of the day and mid-afternoon and with those sorts of conditions, fires will start very easily," he said.

"We're hoping that the wind doesn't also increase too much, because then we've got the holy trilogy being high temperatures, low humidity and high winds.

"It's probably the first consecutive days of heatwave activity that we've seen this summer and we are somewhat concerned about fires starting and then being difficult to control."

With the Australia Day public holiday, Mr Bowden is urging residents to be mindful of any outdoor activities.

"There will be a number of people who turn this into a long weekend and people out on properties or out about in camping areas doing summer activities, we just need to make sure people are mindful of the things they do," he said.

"Power tools and hot tools like angle grinders and welders, the use of vehicles in long grass paddocks, whether it's slashing any remnant harvesting operations or motorcycles, any vehicle that's in a long grass paddock should have a fire extinguisher on board and people should be mindful of where they stop in long grass.

"The ability to start fires now is very easy and with the amount of grasslands fuel around, the body of fuel that we've got, they can create some quite intense fires quite quickly."

Mr Bowden encouraged residents to report any fires by ringing Triple Zero (000) immediately.

You can also download the NSW RFS Fires Near Me app to track any fire activity in the region.

"We've been getting fires every day across the Central West and most fires are started by human activity at the moment," he said.

"Report it immediately on Triple Zero, don't waste time. The quicker that we can get fire fighting resources to the fire, the quicker we can contain it and limit the damage."