Firefighters battle Beaufort blaze into the night as towns evacuated

Anxious residents in western Victoria have been told it could be days before they can return to their homes as firefighters battle an out-of-control bushfire.

Thousands were forced to evacuate Beaufort – about 40 kilometres north-west of Ballarat – when the fire threatened it and surrounding communities on Thursday.

More than 1000 firefighters and 24 aircraft fought the fast-moving blaze as it raced down from Mount Buangor State Park in a south-easterly direction, but a late change in wind direction put new towns in danger.

Late on Thursday, Premier Jacinta Allan said she’d received a briefing and that “the wind change we expected has happened – putting communities to the north and east of Beaufort on high alert.”

About 350 firefighters, 100 trucks and ten bulldozers worked overnight to control spot fires, the CFA said.

CFA chief officer Jason Heffernan told 3AW shortly after 10pm that wind gusts of up to 50 km/h were causing challenges for firefighters

“Thankfully, just before going on air here tonight, I’ve started to get some initial [intelligence that] those winds are dropping,” he said.

Heffernan also thanked firefighters for risking their lives to “fight for Beaufort, Lexton, Raglan and surrounding communities” in a late night social media post.

Shortly after 8pm, the small town of Lexton – 30 kilometres north-east of Beaufort and with a population of about 300 people – was told to evacuate. Amphitheatre, a little further north-west and with an official population of 223, was also under the watch and act warning.

There had been no reports of houses lost on Thursday, but emergency services expected more information about property damage throughout the night.

Earlier on Thursday evening, Heffernan said the fire situation would “get worse before it gets better”.

He said he expected the strong winds to continue until midnight and that more communities would come under threat. Heffernan said additional firefighters would join the firefight in western Victoria over coming hours and days.

“They will be principally coming out of the Melbourne metropolitan area and surrounds,” he said.

Relief centres were established at Ballarat and Ararat and about 100 evacuees were briefed on the fire situation at the CE Brown Reserve in Wendouree on the outskirts of Ballarat on Thursday evening.

CFA West’s community engagement coordinator Chris Carey told residents the Beaufort fire front was about 20 to 30 kilometres long and heading north-east following the wind change.

He said the fire was around 6700 hectares in size and mainly burning in state forest, but some spot fires had occurred in the township of Beaufort.

“[The fire is] going to stay fairly active through the night until the temperature drops a fair bit,” he said.

Carey told residents to “settle in” as roads to Beaufort and other nearby hamlets would remain closed.

“It’s still very dynamic, and it’s still very dangerous up there.”

Beaufort residents Tina Koeleman and her partner Rebecca Brunner and their dog Chief at the Wendouree emergency relief centre in Ballarat on Thursday evening.Credit: Eddie Jim

Rebecca Brunner and her partner Tina Koeleman are two of the people staying at the evacuation centre. They left their Beaufort home about 3.30pm on Thursday with some important documents and medications – and their dog, Chief.

Brunner described the terrifying scenes in Beaufort.

“From our place I looked outside and it was just black. It was unbelievable,” she said. “So dark, it was, and it just kept moving through the town.”

The couple initially went to an evacuation point at Beaufort Lake – but after 30 minutes police told them to move on to the Wendouree relief centre as the fire bore down.

“They actually closed that evacuation centre,” Koeleman said. “Embers were landing everywhere and there were spot fires everywhere.”

The couple had to leave their pet cat in Beaufort.

“We didn’t have anything to put her in,” Brunner said. “We left her outside because we figured she’s got more of a chance [of survival] outside than locked in the house.”

Beaufort bird rescuer Jasmine Broadbent was wrangling more than 100 wild and domestic birds – including macaws, lorikeets, cockatoos, pigeons and canaries at the Wendouree centre on Thursday night.

“There’s anywhere between 100 and 150 birds we got out,” she told The Age.

Jasmine Broadbent (left) and Mel Vincent at the Wendouree emergency relief centre in Ballarat with their rescued birds as smoke blots the sky.Credit: Eddie Jim

The exhausted Broadbent – who only recently moved her bird rescue organisation, AviRescue Victoria, to Beaufort – spent hours on Thursday getting the birds from their aviaries to the safety of Wendouree oval.

Short of cages, Broadbent said a number of the birds were loose in the minibus that was driven by her cousin to the relief centre.

“One was sitting on his shoulder,” she said.

Two other rescuers – Mel Vincent and Lisa Redford – heeded the call for help and made their way from Melbourne, while other volunteers arrived at the reserve to take some birds home temporarily.

“The birds are affected by smoke – they’re very sensitive,” said Broadbent. “We knew we had to act early.”

Pyrenees Shire councillor David Clark, whose home is near the Beaufort fire, said council offices had been evacuated and staff told to go home at his municipality. He said the blaze was the biggest he could remember in the area.

“We’ve had fires around here but never this close to home,” he said.

A relief centre set up in Beaufort earlier on Thursday was later closed. “That came under direct threat,” Clark said.

He was unaware if any houses or sheds had been burned, but he expected there could be some property losses.

“I’m pretty worried for Beaufort,” he said.

The fire resulted in the closure of the Western Highway in both directions between Ballarat and Ararat. Some V/Line services were also suspended.

The premier said the fire near Beaufort was of “grave concern” and it had been a difficult day for fire conditions.

“Our thoughts are with those Victorians who are directly impacted,” she said.

Almost 30 hospital patients were evacuated to Ballarat from small urgent care and aged care beds from the Beaufort and Skipton Health Service.

And while many parents of students at Beaufort Primary and Beaufort Secondary picked their children up early on Thursday, the state government reported 29 students remained at the schools when the evacuation notice was issued. As a result, 29 students were bussed to the Ballarat relief centre.

The government said there were no preemptive Friday school closures, but that would depend on weather overnight.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told radio station 3AW it was “quite extraordinary” there had been fires and floods recently in Victoria.

Allan confirmed more than 600 Victorian homes and businesses were still without power following last week’s strong wind gusts.

The government said as of 5pm today, an additional 2171 electricity customers were without power as a result of the fire and wind conditions. Of those, 59 properties are “power dependent”, the industry term for needing electricity for health reasons.