Hundreds of truckies and travellers stranded in remote WA began moving again on Wednesday evening as firefighters kept up efforts to contain a bushfire raging across the Nullarbor.
The Department of Fire and Emergency Services had issued an emergency warning for people travelling in the area on Wednesday morning, closing Eyre Highway between Caiguna Roadhouse and Madura.
It downgraded the alert to a 'watch and act' at 4.12pm and to an 'advice' by 5.30pm, when the highway reopened.
Many of the long-haul drivers and tourists making the trip interstate had been trapped between roadblocks 170 kilometres apart.
All roads and tracks within Nuytsland Nature Reserve remained closed at 5.30pm. The fire, sparked by lightning four days ago 20 kilometres south of Cocklebiddy, was not yet considered contained.
Amongst those who was stranded was Andrew Ivey, a traveller who became stuck at Cocklebiddy Roadhouse en-route from Perth to the Gold Coast - heading east.
"I'm relocating from Queensland and I've got a ute and a trailer and my life is in there," he said.
"I was driving along and it looked like I was driving into a thunderstorm. It looked like a thunderstorm cloud, but it was obviously smoke not a cloud, but it had that real thunderstorm look about it.
"That was pretty much all morning and I've been driving since daylight.
"There were a couple of people that actually drove through it right at the last moment, they were coming the other way, they were heading west, the fire wasn't across the road but it was pretty hairy, they could hardly see, their visibility was so low.
"Everybody's here they're not letting people go east or west at the moment.
"There's about 22 or 23 trucks here at the moment and a lot of tourists and caravans and just general travellers, there's a lot of people around.
"The wind has just blown a lot of dust around so everyone is sitting in their cars and its quite warm so there's a lot of people just sitting in cars trying to get some rest I think with their motors running and their air cons on."
The blaze, which is burning west of the South Australian border, jumped Eyre Highway on Wednesday morning.
The Department of Fire and Emergency Services has advised motorists to avoid the area, reduce speed and drive carefully due to smoke.
The fire started in Nuytsland Nature Reserve and on Wednesday was burning out-of-control near Tommy Graham Cave.
There is another fire burning in the area which has been contained and controlled.
For the latest updates, visit www.emergency.wa.gov.au
