Bushfires reach Melbourne
Too late for residents to leave as heatwave fans Aussie flames
MELBOURNE: Fire threatened three Melbourne suburbs with residents warned it was too late to flee and they must “act immediately to survive”, as a heatwave fuelled Australia’s deadly bushfire crisis.
Authorities declared a bushfire emergency as an out-of-control blaze bore down on homes in Australia’s second-biggest city.
In Bundoora – just 16km north of the city centre and home to two major Australian university campuses – fire was “threatening homes and lives”, Victoria Emergency said.
“You are in danger and need to act immediately to survive,” the agency said in a message to residents. “The safest option is to take shelter indoors immediately. It is too late to leave.”
Local media showed images of water bombers flying over the neighbourhoods and families dousing their homes with water hoses in the hope of halting the fire’s spread.
It is the latest emergency in Australia’s devastating summer fire season, which has been turbocharged by a prolonged drought and climate change.
Ten people have been killed, more than 1,000 homes destroyed and more than three million hectares – an area bigger than Belgium – have been scorched.
Conditions worsened on Friday with high winds and temperatures soaring across the country – reaching 47°C in Western Australia and topping 40°C in every region – including the usually temperate island of Tasmania.
More than a dozen blazes are also raging in the East Gippsland countryside, where authorities said “quite a number” of the 30,000 tourists visiting the usually picturesque region had heeded calls to evacuate.
Some of the fires were burning so intensely that hundreds of firefighters were pulled back beyond a firefront estimated to stretch 1,000km.
It was deemed “unsafe” for them to remain in bushland areas, Gippsland fire incident controller Ben Rankin said, describing the situation as “very intense”.
Authorities had warned tourists enjoying Australia’s summer holidays in East Gippsland that the fires would cut off the last major road still open. Victoria Emergency Management commissioner Andrew Crisp said residents and holiday makers still in the area faced being stranded as it was now “too late to leave”, with his agency warning it was “not possible” to provide aid to all visitors in the area.
Neighbouring South Australia is also experiencing “catastrophic” fire conditions.