Australian cities evacuated over Christmas due to bushfires

Residents of an Australian region hit by wildfires were given two hours on Tuesday to return home and gather their belongings before Christmas, as emergency crews try to contain the blaze.

Communities around Victoria’s Grampian Mountains have been evacuated amid warnings from authorities that conditions there in the coming days could be the worst since Australia’s worst fire season on record, the so-called “Black Summer.” ” from 2019-20.

Wildfires have already burned more than 41,000 hectares (101,000 acres) of land in the past week, however there have been no deaths or property losses.

The intense heat forecast for Boxing Day has also prompted a series of fire warnings across the country.

Across Victoria, temperatures are expected to reach 40°C (104°F) and be accompanied by strong dry winds, while parts of South Australia and New South Wales could also face bushfire conditions from Thursday to Friday .

“We expect to see extreme fire danger across almost the entire state,” said Luke Hegarty, spokesperson for the Victorian State Control Centre.

“This is the most significant fire danger the state has seen (in all sections of the state we’re talking about) since the Black Summer. It’s important for people to understand that Thursday is a day with great potential,” he added.

Four interstate firefighting forces and two incident management teams, made up of more than 100 people, will land in Victoria in the coming days to give a respite to emergency teams who have been working around the clock to combat the current fires.

The decision to give families around the Grampians temporary access to their homes “for Christmas items…gifts and the like” on Tuesday morning was made by the head of the National Fire Authority (CFA). state, Jason Heffernan.

“(This is) to ensure that if Halls Gap residents are to be relocated by Christmas, they will at least have what they need,” he told Seven’s Sunrise programme.

Mary Ann Brown, who lives at the southern end of the Grampians National Park, told ABC her community is nervous ahead of the holidays.

“We won’t be out of the woods until a good drop of rain comes and it may not come until March or April, so it’s going to be a long summer.”

Parts of Australia have been on high alert for bushfire danger this summer, following several quieter seasons compared to the 2019-20 fires that occurred linked to hundreds of deaths and covered 24 million hectares of land.

The country has lurched from disaster to disaster in recent years, experiencing unprecedented flooding and extreme heat, while feeling the effects of climate change.