Thousands
have sought safety in the lake and ocean in a coastal town in Victoria's East
Gippsland, fleeing an out-of-control bushfire. Extreme winds and embers have
been threatening the CBD and access roads have been cut. The fire had reached
the northern end of the town on Tuesday morning and about 4,000 people fled to
the coastline, with Country Fire Authority members working to protect them. The
town had not been told to evacuate on Sunday when the rest of East Gippsland
was, and authorities decided it was too dangerous to move them on Monday.
'This is absolutely one of the worst seasons we’ve seen'
“We’ve got
fires burning from the Queensland border all the way down to the Victorian
border, across the great dividing range,” says Fitzsimmons.
There have
been multiple challenges, he says, noting that today conditions didn’t allow
for the flying of some aerial support craft.
“We are
expecting a return to more hot dangerous and difficult conditions … and we can
expect some fairly widespread severe fire danger ratings.”
He notes
the dry landscape, the “moisture depleted” landscape, in a state which is “100%
drought-affected”. There’s been a significant number of pyroconvective activity
and the tragic consequences of that.
“We have
seen now confirmed eight civilian fatalities, three firefighter fatalities, and
we have grave concerns for another civilian down in the southeast of NSW,” he
says.
“We have
seen over 900 homes destroyed and over 3.6m hectares of country burnt so far
this season. We have still months to go of summer. Absolutely, this is up to be
one of the worst, if not the worst fire season we have experienced here in
NSW.”
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