Dry fuel likely to add to growing fire conditions in Victoria

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Grampians fire in western Victoria has jumped to emergency level in a worrying sign of what could happen over the next 36 hours because conditions are going to get much worse. So this a fire that has been burning for several days and has been fluctuating between watch and act and emergency. So, locals are well aware of it. This emergency warning is in relation to one portion of the fire only - there are several other areas around it that remain at watch and act. There's an emergency warning to leave Immediately for Moyston and Pomonal

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00:00Temperatures and winds aren't too bad but the vegetation is very dry and then

00:06even moderate winds are getting a bit of a kick up on the fire and we're already

00:10seeing pretty big smoke plumes coming out from this fire and as we get into

00:13tonight and to tomorrow we've got a cold front in Western South Australia at the

00:18moment. It's going to move across South Australia tonight and into Western

00:21Victoria tomorrow. Now ahead of that we're going to have very strong and

00:25gusty winds. We've got a severe weather warning current for much of Western

00:28Victoria and eastern parts of South Australia for damaging winds of 90 to

00:33100 kilometres an hour which is going to really put a push onto this fire.

00:37Temperatures are going to be into the mid to high 30s, low 40s for large areas

00:41as well and then after a few hours of those strong and gusty northerly winds

00:45this front will then move in with a very strong and sharp westerly change. So we

00:49could see the winds fluctuate between northerly, northwesterly, maybe some

00:52northeasterly and then swing right around to a west or southwesterly in the

00:56mid to late afternoon hours tomorrow right across the fire area and because

01:01of the mountainous terrain as well we could get local variations in that wind

01:04as well. So it's going to be a complex, dangerous and erratic fire day tomorrow

01:09across much of the Grampians. Incredibly so. So just repeating that, winds of up

01:14around up to 100 k's an hour could hit that fire tomorrow. Yeah that's right.

01:21Most of the gusts will be in that 50-60 sustained area but we could see

01:25gusts, that's right, into 90 to 100 kilometres an hour and that's going to

01:29cause some major problems. Yeah and just going through this once

01:33again because it's important information for people in that area, that

01:36peak area of concern with that Grampians fire is going to be through the

01:41afternoon tomorrow. Yeah that's right, pretty much. We'll see those winds pick

01:45up from the late morning from there somewhere between northeasterly to

01:48northwesterly so the fire will probably run very quickly to the south then that

01:53wind change will come sometime in the mid to late afternoon and then that'll

01:56shift the fire from running southerly to into more of an easterly direction as

02:00that wind change comes in and that's the biggest concern when we have this very

02:04erratic and dangerous shift in the direction in which the fire goes and

02:08that's dependent on that wind change which at this stage will be the afternoon

02:11and evening. And obviously if there are any other fires that pop up in Victoria

02:14in the next 24 hours that'll be incredibly dangerous with them too. But

02:18just going to the situation in South Australia now because that was today was

02:22kind of like the principal fire danger area for South Australia with conditions

02:27ahead of what they were going to be in Victoria tomorrow. Thankfully there's

02:32kind of no major fires of significance there today. Yeah so far so good

02:38we've still got a few hours to go of course and yeah main issue or worry area is the

02:43Mount Lofty Ranges and the west coast of South Australia. The front will move

02:47through the west coast in the next few hours but probably won't get to the

02:50Mount Lofty areas until the early hours of the morning. So it's gonna be a very

02:53warm and breezy night through Adelaide and the Lofty Ranges and then the

02:57westerly change will hit them sometime tomorrow morning, mid to late morning.

03:00And we don't want to neglect the rest of the country on Christmas Day

03:06Dean. So yeah what can you basically tell us about the rest of the nation including Tassie?

03:12Yeah look today it's almost a perfect Christmas Day right around the

03:17country. Right across the eastern Australia we've got temperatures in the

03:19high 20s low 30s with lots of sunshine so beautiful for barbecues pools and

03:24beaches. Even down into Victoria we've seen a warm and sunny day but things

03:28will turn tomorrow as we've just heard. Tasmania being the low to mid 20s today

03:32they'll get into the high 20s to low 30s tomorrow with some showers ahead of that

03:36front. Adelaide and South Australia hot day today cool change tonight into

03:41tomorrow morning. WA very different they're actually quite cool at the

03:44moment breezy conditions around Perth pretty dry in the south and across our

03:48tropical north pretty cool in Darwin today only 30 months of morning rain

03:52then just showers and storms hit and miss across the top. And no signs yet of

03:57a monsoon trough developing over over the north of the nation which is what

04:01generally spawns cyclones? Yeah absolutely and it's not even into

04:05Southeast Asia which is normally we see some activity there at the moment so

04:08we're probably at least into the new year before we see any signs of

04:12monsoonal activity across northern Australia.

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