On Tuesday January 14th 2014 during our 5 day heatwave a series of dry thunderstoms headed across South Australia starting around 250 fires in about 4 hours. Most of them were put out fairly quickly due to the lack of wind. The fires that were in inaccessible areas ended up being larger fires (about 15 of them around the State) and with some follow up thunderstorms with strong winds on the Friday took out 450000 hectares.
The Melrose Fire Station became the base of operations for the Bangor Fire which burnt 23000 hectares and a number of houses as well. Staging was located at the nearby Melrose Showgrounds with the crews being accomodated in Pt Pirie and Pt Augusta.
I spent 4 nights here as the "Red Team" Incident Controller and came close to getting the fire out if it wasnt for a weather change.
Operations were eventually relocated to Crystal Brook with Staging in Pt Pirie due to most of the areas of concern being on the western saide of the Ranges near Napperby.