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The fire was still burning last night in coupe Wedge 31D, near Lake Gordon, although it had been contained. The executive officer of the Tasmanian Logging Association, Wayne Foss, said that on any normal summer's day the blaze could have ripped right through the South West forests and put Hobart suburbs under severe threat.
The vandals struck some time overnight and left a damage bill in excess
of $750,000.
They set fire to a $300,000 excavator that was parked behind
locked boom gates near the coupe, which has been logged for the past two
months by Les Walkden Enterprises of Launceston. The fire then spread to
the coupe.
The vandals also damaged another excavator, a cable logger and Mr Walkden's fire-fighting unit and equipment, which left contractors helpless to tackle the potentially devastating blaze when they arrived at work at 7am.
It was the second serious act of vandalism against Mr Walkden in as many months and he yesterday announced a $10,000 reward for information that led to a conviction for the crimes. Just before Christmas, someone vandalised the business' cable logger in the Styx Valley, causing $40,000 damage and six weeks of lost production.
Last time Mr Walkden paid his employees while they could not work. "But I am not in a financial position to do so again," he said last night. He said the incident would also send insurance premiums rocketing for the industry at a time when they were already at crippling levels.
Mr Walkden, who has been in the industry for 26 years and has never experienced anything like yesterday's attack, said he had no idea who would target him in such a way.
Mr Foss also declined to speculate, but Gunns Ltd managing director John Gay said: "It is an area that the conservationists ... have always been trying to make a story out of and now this has happened."
However, the Tasmanian Greens suggested the incident was related to an internal industry feud and were quick to distance conservationists from the crime.
The coupe in question is a 70ha strip of native forest with some rainforest between lakes Gordon and Pedder.
Up to 45 Forestry Tasmania fire-fighters, help by crews from Norske
Skog, battled the blaze and contained damage to just half a hectare. A
bark heap was still burning last night on one edge of the coupe.
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