Communities in Victoria’s central west have an anxious afternoon ahead, as hundreds of fire fighters work to contain a major bushfire that's out of control in the Grampians national park. Multiple emergency warnings have been issued - and evacuations are underway, with residents warned to leave by 3pm. The 28,000-hectare fire is about five kilometres south of halls gap and is being fanned by southerly winds.
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00:00The same warnings that came into effect last night are in place.
00:06The emergency warning areas, the ones where people are being told to leave immediately,
00:11are for the suburbs of Mafeking, Watganya, Belfield, Halls Gap, Lake Fyons and Pomona.
00:19The watch and acts are for the areas, prepare to leave, are for the areas of Jimmy Creek,
00:24Mirranatwa, Bourns Hill and Victoria Valley.
00:28There's also a watch and act for the areas of Barton, Jallikar, Moyston and Millora North,
00:34but the advice there is to monitor conditions as they are changing.
00:40As you mentioned just before, it is a cooler day today.
00:43I had yesterday off, but at about 2 o'clock I can remember stepping here onto the main
00:48street of Ballarat and just seeing this enormous wall of smoke.
00:51And that was a reflection of how hot the conditions were yesterday and how fast the wind was blowing
00:56the smoke from the Grampians east towards Ballarat.
00:59Basically the conditions were just that tough yesterday that firefighters couldn't really
01:04fight the fires as much, but we have heard from the Bureau of Meteorology that there's
01:08cooler conditions.
01:09You can probably see the wind from the trees behind me.
01:12And they are also, it's probably worth mentioning that there is a relief centre that's opened
01:17up at Alexandra Oval in Ararat, which is just on the eastern edge of the Grampians, for
01:23anybody that is trying to leave that fire and needs somewhere to stay.
01:27But yeah, I guess the bottom line is that there is a cold front forecast for Victoria
01:32today and firefighters are hoping that they can get a bit on top of the fire.
01:37We've also heard, I should mention, from Gary Cook from the CFA, who has more to say.
01:42The fire expanded quite significantly in the Grampians yesterday under really strong southerly
01:47winds and has grown now to just under 30,000 hectares, so it's a really large fire.
01:53It's into the south end of Lake Belfield, which is south of Halls Gap.
01:58So the communities to the northern end of the Grampians have had an emergency warning
02:03issue there to leave now.
02:05So that's the Halls Gap and Pomona communities.
02:08So the fire has stabilised since the wind has dropped, but there is a lot of fire in
02:12the landscape.
02:14Now Alexander, there are also other serious fires burning in Victoria.
02:18What can you tell us about those?
02:20Yeah, so Joanna, there's a fire in the Girdies, which is along the Bass Coast in southeast
02:27Victoria, and another one in the Macedon Ranges.
02:31Both of those briefly reached emergency level yesterday.
02:34They started up during that intense fire day.
02:38They're both back down to watch and acts now.
02:41We also heard from Gary Cook from the CFA.
02:45He mentioned that the Bass Coast Highway, which is relevant to that Girdies fire, is
02:50currently closed.
02:51It's very hard to get firefighters into that fire there.
02:55They're relying on aircrafts and he's also had a few other things to say earlier this
03:01morning.
03:02That fire was a really challenging one yesterday.
03:05It sort of spotted in a number of locations and caused a number of small fires outside
03:10of the major fire.
03:11So crews have worked really hard on that overnight and will continue to do that today.
03:16The Bass Coast Highway is closed down to one lane due to the impact of the fire.
03:21These fires are in difficult terrain.
03:23It's really quite hard to get firefighters on the ground in, so support by aircraft is
03:27really the key and they'll be doing that on that fire again today.
03:34So just to recap, Joanna, the Grampians fire, it's currently at about 28,000 hectares.
03:39It pretty much doubled in size yesterday.
03:42Firefighters expect to be fighting that for weeks to come, given we've got more high temperatures
03:45expected next week, including on Christmas and Boxing Day.
03:50When it comes to that Girdies fire in eastern Victoria, there will be some cool conditions,
03:55but the same as the Grampians, Christmas and Boxing Day could see some significant challenging
04:00days.
04:01So the fire season is well underway in Victoria and multiple parts of the state are feeling
04:06it at the moment.
04:09For more information visit www.fema.gov