More than 1000 firefighters have been battling the 14,000-hectare blaze and authorities are now warning of searing heat and strong winds returning next week.
More than 20 small towns in Victoria’s west were still under threat from blazes late on Friday, even as emergency services warned of more searing hot days and resurgent bushfire danger as soon as next week.
Authorities said they were aware of at least one residence that had been destroyed in the blaze, but were bracing for more property losses. Late on Friday afternoon, Federal Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt told ABC that “the latest reports are that we probably seen somewhere between five and 10 homes destroyed in and around Beaufort”.
North of the fire, Avoca was among more than 20 small townships and hamlets on alert with the main fire front about 40 kilometres south-west of the town.“I do anticipate at this stage that next Wednesday is likely to be Victoria’s next fire spike day,” he said.– or firestorm – was responsible for the erratic and unpredictable fire behaviour that caught many in Victoria’s west by surprise this week.
If the fire danger rating is formally declared as catastrophic on Wednesday, that would be just the second time the rating has been issued since the Black Summer of 2019-20. The first time was only just over a week ago on February 13 when a fireThe bushfire warning was downgraded to an advice message on Friday for Beaufort, but emergency warnings remained in place for towns including Elmhurst.
“We closed the store at 8pm because my husband’s daughter kept calling saying, ‘Dad you have to leave the place’,” said Rizzo, who moved to Australia 18 months ago from the Philippines and was experiencing bushfires for the first time.“So we didn’t finish cleaning the shop – we just got the important things, we loaded the car with my son because we just didn’t know what would happen because the wind was so bad.