Some residents in the path of a devastating bushfire sweeping across a rural Queensland community are preparing to flee by boat, with the only bridge out of the area now under threat.
The Deepwater fire between Bundaberg and Gladstone has burned through more than 20,000 hectares of bush and farmland since Saturday, and is now bearing down on homes.
Residents from around 50 properties in the Rules Beach area were still refusing to leave on Wednesday morning, with authorities pleading with them to evacuate or risk being burned to death.
Sally Ehrlich runs the Baffle Creek Caravan Park, and has so far declined to leave, saying the park is well-cleared and not prone to fire.
Around nine people are currently at the park, which backs onto Baffle Creek itself.
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Ms Ehrlich says the creek is their emergency escape route.
"We've got boats galore," she told AAP.
"We'd be getting people out on the boats, over to Winfield (across the creek), that's the best we can do."
"We'd have to wait for a lot more fire yet, for us (to leave)."
The SES has started ferrying people from Flatrock campground, several hundred metres downriver, across Baffle Creek, with police starting to pull out of the area.
Ms Ehrlich said she hasn't seen the police on Wednesday, but assumed they had been busy elsewhere.
"I think they know we're safe here for the moment, they've been concentrating on people in the thicker scrub."
The only road access into the area, Hills Road Bridge, is understood to be vulnerable to the fire front.
Once it is cut there will be no escape by land from the inferno.
Authorities have warned the blaze is now a "firestorm" which will not be held back by residents' usual bushfire preparations.
Deputy Police Commissioner Bob Gee said officers were doing a final sweep of the area, but after that residents would be on their own
"People will burn to death. It is no different to a Category 5 cyclone coming through your door," he said.
"The beach may not be a safe option. Leave now."
