It's so dry 'only the cow pats will burn': drought-affected graziers south of Tharwa prepare for the oncoming fire

Ground Zero of the Orroral Valley fire was just over the ridge from Steve Angus's homestead and beneath a brooding Mt Tennent, he's preparing for another night like 2003.

Ignited by the heat of a landing light on a Defence Force helicopter earlier this week, the fire already has run down into his farm's valley, split, and then dissipated.

But he knows it will come back again soon.

A former Tharwa RFS brigade captain and widely respected throughout his local community, Mr Angus has been farming his 1500 acres for 21 years and fully expects the fire will work its way around the mountain and through its foothills in the hours ahead.

Across the valley from his homestead, he knows that with the predicted wind behind it, the forest regrown there will turn into a hell's nest of flames and super-heated embers.

As in 2003, when the fire photographs taken from his property, Ballineen, were so compelling they now sit in the National Library archives, he's ready to do it all again.

"I'm quite confident we should be fine down here; I've got plenty of water, we've fought this before and it looks like one of the Queensland strike teams is going to stay with us.

"Last time we were out in the paddocks, smoke everywhere and putting out spot fires with wet hessian bags.

"The cattle got through OK but I lost a lot of sheep in that fire because they were too high up and I couldn't get up to save them in time because of the speed that the fire came at us."

Earlier on Thursday, he had been at the front of the room in the Tharwa community hall alongside ACT Rural Fire Services chief officer Joe Murphy as locals sought answers as to the speed and direction of the oncoming Orroral fire, and what resources would be deployed to help them.

There are about a dozen large rural land holdings to the south of the Tharwa hamlet, some with additional residences for families and farm workers.

Like Mr Angus, all but one of the 12 are preparing to stay and fight what they feel is certain to arrive sometime on Saturday, depending on the wind conditions.

"I strongly suspect that whole ridge will go up again," he said, looking east across the valley from his home.

"And when it does, it will carry right [the fire] across the border into NSW and who knows from there?"

Further down the road, pastoralist Matt Gregory was trying to find help to protect his historic shearing shed on the Naas Road.

"The shed was built in 1893, so it's an important piece of local history," he said.

At the earlier Tharwa community meeting, RFS boss Joe Murphy had described the Orroral blaze as a "campaign fire" which will "require time, effort and patience to get on top of".

"We will do what we can to steer it but without solid rain, we are looking at possibly weeks to fight this."

Police have a "soft" road block in place on Tharwa Drive to prevent what acting South District superintendent Rod Anderson described as "rubber-neckers" clogging the narrow country roads.

Superintendent Anderson has a personal stake in this fire being contained. He has a small farm in Michelago right in the fire's easterly path.

If the north-westerly wind spreads the fire east and south into open grassland, experts say it will accelerate in speed but be easier to fight than in the steep mountains.

"The only good thing about the drought is that it has given the fire less paddock to burn," Mr Angus said.

"The only thing that will burn out there is the cow pats."