During yesterday’s (November 26) Spilt Milk festival in Canberra, a dry grass fire led to one punter being injured and several cars damaged.
As reported by The Canberra Times, one of the paddocks used as a car park at the Exhibition Centre (where the festival was held) caught fire around 2:20pm, quickly spreading and damaging at least four vehicles. It’s not yet known exactly what caused the blaze, though according to the Times, it was likely the result of a car’s hot exhaust system sparking up a patch of freshly mowed, drying grass.
Firefighters were in attendance, however it’s reported that the Emergency Services Agency were unable to access the fire with their pumper due to the amount of cars in their way, and potential for the fire to become unwieldy. The blaze was eventually extinguished.
Have a look at footage of the incident below:
In a statement shared on social media, Spilt Milk’s organisers confirmed that one person on the scene was “treated for a minor injury”, but no other punters were affected. The blaze was “quickly contained and managed by the fire department,” they continued, noting that the campground’s entry point and car park were momentarily shut down.
The festival itself, they said, “stayed fully operational”. NME was on the ground for it – our review will be published imminently.
The event was headlined by Flume, and featured a sprawling line-up including the likes of The Wombats, Steve Lacy, Spacey Jane and Genesis Owusu. All of those artists will appear at the next two dates of this year’s Spilt Milk festival, which is set to be held next in Ballarat on Saturday December 3. The inaugural Gold Coast edition will then go down the following day (December 4). Find more info on those dates here.