Firefighters rush to suppress major bushfire in Victoria

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Hundreds of firefighters are racing against the clock to suppress a major bushfire north-west of Ballarat, ahead of dangerous fire conditions on Wednesday.

Transcript

00:00 Well, where I am in Booanga, the firefight is still very much underway.

00:06 More than 550 firefighters from across the state are uniting to try and get the upper

00:11 hand on this blaze, which has so far burned through more than 19,500 hectares of land,

00:18 including where you can see behind me, that blackened land there.

00:22 And sadly, six homes have been lost since last Thursday.

00:26 Now this fire has presented a great challenge for firefighters across the state.

00:30 It comes just a week after those devastating fires in the northern Grampians region, which

00:35 destroyed properties in the town of Pomona.

00:40 But in terms of this firefight at the moment, milder conditions today have presented favourable

00:47 conditions for firefighters.

00:49 It is a lot cooler.

00:50 We've even seen a bit of a sprinkle of rain in the last couple of hours or so.

00:54 But it really is a race against time because it is Wednesday that firefighters and authorities

01:00 are warning could present extreme to potentially catastrophic conditions for six of the nine

01:06 fire districts across Victoria.

01:09 So firefighters will be working around the clock from today.

01:12 They worked yesterday as well, but throughout the day to bolster those containment lines

01:19 and suppress the fires.

01:21 But the authorities have warned that there might not be enough time before Wednesday

01:26 to really get the upper hand.

01:28 And as a result, communities have been preparing for the worst.

01:32 Yesterday, we saw a community meeting in the town of Beaufort, which is about 20 k's from

01:37 where I am here.

01:39 And the message to residents is to prepare well and to prepare early.

01:43 Take a listen to what one of our firefighters had to say.

01:48 Look at our brigade, we're just going to focus on our southern boundary and just keep mopping

01:53 up in there over the next couple of days.

01:57 And then Tuesday, we'll start to prepare for Wednesday, which at this stage looks like

02:02 being a bad day.

02:03 So whether anything happens out of the current fire or there's another one starts up somewhere,

02:09 we'll be fairly prepared to hook into it pretty quick.

02:13 Yeah, Lexi, there is a warning for those high temperatures later this week.

02:18 Yeah, we're expecting temperatures in the high 30s in some areas right up to 45 degrees

02:25 in Mildura.

02:26 Melbourne's expecting around 40 degrees.

02:28 And this will be coupled by really windy conditions.

02:31 So as I mentioned before, it's going to create extreme fire danger in many districts and

02:37 potentially catastrophic.

02:39 But in the meantime, the message is really clear to communities here in the western part

02:44 of the state to prepare and really stay across those warnings because this fire is very volatile

02:50 and it is a dynamic situation here.

02:52 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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