Weather takes the heat off
Melbourne – Benign weather conditions have slowed a massive bushfire in eastern Victoria.
Almost 300 firefighters battled the 48,000-hectare blaze last night, while 28 firefighters remained with 10 residents who chose to stay and defend their homes in the town of Licola, 15 kilometres from the fire front.
A Country Fire Authority spokesman said the fire was still headed for Licola, but was moving slowly thanks to cooler conditions and calming winds.
The fire began in Baw Baw National Park on Thursday and had forced the evacuation of homes in Seaton, Licola and Heyfield by yesterday morning.
The blaze has already claimed one life. A man’s body was found in a burnt-out car in the Seaton area.
Victorian police confirmed that at least five properties had been destroyed.
Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Rod Dickson said favourable weather conditions were forecast for the bushfireaffected areas.
Meanwhile, two properties were destroyed, a property owner was hospitalised and several firefighters collapsed with heat exhaustion during a ‘‘very, very challenging’’ day of bushfires in New South Wales.
Despite plummeting temperatures bringing a cool change across the state last night, firefighters said the battle against the blazes was far from over.
The number of fires burning in NSW rose to 120 yesterday, after a day of intense heat and wind gusts of up to 90kmh fanned the flames of existing fires and sparked new blazes.
Twenty-six of those were uncontained at 11pm last night.
Disaster struck in the Bega Valley, when a new bushfire west of Merimbula destroyed two properties and two sheds in the Millingandi area.
It brings to 53 the number of properties destroyed in the devastating NSW fires this year.
The fire crossed the Princes Highway yesterday afternoon and was threatening more properties between Wolumla and Millingandi, with firefighters working desperately through the night to contain it, the Rural Fire Service said.
At Nowra, a rural property owner was taken to hospital after an ‘‘erratic’’ fire at Barringella Creek swept through a farm and destroyed a shed on the town’s outskirts.
Temperatures across the state were well into the 40s, sparking a number of blazes, including a fastmoving grass fire at Boorowa.
In Sydney, which recorded its hottest ever temperature of 45.8 degrees C, a fire broke out in KuRing-Gai Chase National Park, sending smoke and burning embers across the northern suburbs. Fires in Campbelltown and Marsden Park in the west were contained relatively quickly.