Property losses as storms spark new fires amid Victorian heatwave, bushfire emergency

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Severe thunderstorms ripped through Victoria last night causing flash flooding in south-west Melbourne. Temperatures will soar today with new out of control bushfires popping up across the state.

Transcript

00:00Melbourne is set for another scorching day in this heatwave, which continues with the

00:09mercury expected to climb to 39 degrees today after a very uncomfortable night last night.

00:16The temperature's not really dipping below 21 degrees and in fact the heatwave conditions

00:21are being seen around really the rest of the country except for Queensland.

00:25For example, over in Adelaide it's expected to get up to 41 degrees today.

00:30But here in Melbourne and in Victoria, we also saw some really damaging storms sweep

00:36through parts of the state last night.

00:40This was particularly severe in the areas of Melbourne's west, in Werribee, as well

00:45as the city of Geelong, and also across in Queenscliff and the Mornington Peninsula where

00:52we saw in parts rainfall of between 50 to 60 millimetres, as well as very strong gusting

00:58winds and quite the lightning show as well.

01:01At the moment, there are still thousands of homes which are out of power at the height

01:06of these storms.

01:07Around 45,000 customers were left without any power and they are obviously working very

01:13hard to try to restore power to those affected areas now.

01:17But we also saw the SES called out for around 800 calls for assistance, 400 of those were

01:25for trees down and more than 180 for damage to buildings.

01:30And firefighters say that they believe that lightning strikes also actually led to a house

01:36fire in Taylors Lakes, which is in Melbourne's north-western suburbs.

01:41That started just before 1 o'clock this morning and by the time fire crews arrived, it was

01:47apparent that it had already become quite deep-seated and below the roofline, which

01:52is why they thought that it was probably a lightning strike.

01:55Now it took about 30 firefighters around an hour to bring that blaze under control and

02:01they say that they are going to continue to have to really extinguish some of those deep-seated

02:06hotspots that have severely damaged that home.

02:09But there is no relief immediately in sight at the moment.

02:12The Weather Bureau is saying that we are expecting to see further storms and lightning strikes,

02:18which are really a concern for fire crews.

02:22And they are expected to be across the western areas of the state, extending to central districts.

02:29We are also expected to continue to see these very hot temperatures and there won't be any

02:34relief until a cool change arrives tomorrow night.

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