Firefighters seek ‘upper hand’ as blaze hits rural Australia

SYDNEY – Firefighters were scrambling on Jan 28 to control a blaze tearing through rural south-eastern Australia, as stranded local residents were warned it was “too late to leave” if they had not already fled.

The bush fire in a western area of Victoria state has burned through 65,000ha, or almost the size of Singapore – and was now moving towards the small farming town of Dimboola, about 330km north-west of Melbourne.

Chief fire officer Jason Heffernan said the swiftly moving fire had spread through 40km of national park as hot winds fanned the state on the evening of Jan 27.

“We’re still continuing to work that fire line there. Firefighters are really trying to get the upper hand where they can,” he told national broadcaster ABC.

“But certainly we’re not out of the woods yet by any stretch of imagination.”

Mr Heffernan said almost 100 people had registered at an evacuation centre outside Dimboola, which has a population of some 1,600 people.

“If you have not already left, the time to safely evacuate has now passed,” the state emergency authority said.

“Take shelter indoors and monitor conditions. It is too dangerous to leave.”

A band of lightning late on Jan 27 in another part of Victoria ignited a string of smaller bush fires in the Grampians National Park.

“That lightning band went right across the state. I do anticipate more fires to be found today,” Mr Heffernan said.

Hotter temperatures are fuelling increasingly severe natural disasters across Australia, researchers have found.

Scientists have documented a marked increase in extreme fire weather across the country since the 1950s.

The unprecedented “Black Summer” bush fires of 2019 to 2020 killed millions of animals, razed vast tracts of native forest and blanketed major cities in thick smoke. AFP