was judged to be contained. (This carried no implication that the fire was extinguished; the fire was still active in an area of sugar gums and in a swamp.) Tragedies: Tuesday 11 January 2005 Overnight, the fire edge extended approximately . The weather forecast for the morning of Tuesday 11 January was very unfavourable for firefighting, suggesting that extreme conditions would exist at 10 am. In the event, just before 10 am the first of several breakouts occurred from the fireground, spreading extremely quickly under strong north-westerly winds. Maximum temperatures on Tuesday 11 January were recorded as at Coles Point and at Port Lincoln; winds gusted to . During the course of the morning and early afternoon, fire proceeded across the landscape of the Lower Eyre Peninsula in an easterly direction, carried in the main by wheat-stubble fuels. Ultimately it reached North Shields and its beachside caravan park on the east coast north of Port Lincoln's suburbs, and the Port Lincoln Airport and adjacent settlement of Poonindie a further northwards. The worst affected areas were Wangary, North Shields, Wanilla, Poonindie, Louth Bay, Whites Flat, Koppio, Greenpatch and Warunda. Essential services such as electricity, telecommunications and water infrastructure were destroyed. The flames "chose their victims at random", according to an Australian Broadcasting Corporation reporter who interviewed victims on Wednesday 12 January. "Half the Port Lincoln Caravan Park at North Shields was spared; the other half, destroyed. As the flames bore down on the caravan park, panicked residents escaped to the ocean." One man, who had escaped to the beach, said "It's the worst place for it to come, actually, because there's nowhere to run. That's why a lot of the people here ended up in the water. I rescued a man out of a boat that got washed out to sea with the wind yesterday. They jumped off the cliffs when the fire came. [A neighbour and his daughter] couldn't see the land because of the smoke, and the wind was that strong, it actually pushed them out to sea and they nearly drowned, and some people came along in boats and picked them up, and they ended up on the shore just up the road here, and he was collapsed on the bottom of the boat. He spent the night in hospital." During the Tuesday, the fire claimed the lives of nine people and injured 115, three of whom required