Campers and residents urged to leave as firefighters battle blaze in Victorian national park

Campers and residents around a national park in Victoria’s west are being urged to leave, as firefighters battle a bushfire ignited by dry lightning strikes as temperatures topped 40C.

Lightning strikes have ignited a fire in the Little Desert National Park in western Victoria. Picture: VicEmergency Facebook

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Campers and residents in communities surrounding a national park in Victoria’s west are being urged to leave the area, as firefighters battle an out-of-control bushfire ignited by dry lightning strikes amid scorching 40C conditions.

A watch and act warning has been issued for communities in and around the Little Desert National Park, which is about 340km west of Melbourne, including Kinimakatka and Winiam East, with people in the area advised to leave immediately.

“Don’t wait, leaving now is the safest option – conditions may change and get worse very quickly. Emergency services may not be able to help you if you decide to stay,” the VicEmergency warning said.

The fire in the Little Desert National Park is travelling in an easterly direction towards Dimboola.

“This is an active and dynamic fire that is spreading rapidly and is likely to extend further,” the warning said.

“This fire creating a large amount of smoke that can be seen and smelt over a long distance.”

Luke Heagerty from the State Control Centre earlier said it was believed that dry lightning strikes had caused a number of small fires to break out “very close together”.

“They’re now effectively one large fire that’s been burning in the national park for a few hours now,” he said.

“It’s certainly spread under the very dry and hot conditions and windy conditions that we’ve got out there this afternoon.”

However, Mr Heagerty said he was hopeful that a cool change would reach the area in the evening and assist firefighters, who are battling the fires both on the ground and from aircraft.

“At the moment it looks like there is a bit where the fires have slowed down as a result of the fire hitting an area that had previously had some fuel reduction burning done,” he said.

The bushfire comes as Victorians endured hot and windy conditions for the Australia Day public holiday, with a total fire ban in place across much of the state, including the Mallee, Wimmera, South West, North Central and Central districts.

Earlier this month, firefighters contained a bushfire in Cape Otway in Vic­­toria’s southwest that stranded about 100 campers and forced the evacuation of more than 100 other people.

This followed a massive blaze in the Grampians in Victoria’s west, which was ignited by lightening on December 17 and raged for nearly three weeks.

The Grampians fire burned through more than 76,000ha, destroyed four homes and killed hundreds of livestock.