Bushfires: Fire hell eases with but pall of smoke remains in NSW, Victoria, South Australia
Air quality is the burning concern as cooling conditions see fire threats downgraded in three states.
Catastrophic fire threats have eased in three states, but more than 60 bushfires are still burning across NSW, with widespread very high fire danger and hazy Sydney conditions set to stay.
While there are no total fire bans in place for Friday the Rural Fire Service NSW says warm weather is set to continue, with nine regions — including the ACT and entire northern coast — at “very high” fire danger.
Greater Sydney is at “high” fire danger but is also grappling with heavy smoke blanketing the city from the nearby Gospers Mountain fire in the Hawkesbury, which has burned through more than 170,000 hectares, AAP reports.
A dust storm coming in from South Australia would also reduce visibility. The RFS said haze around Sydney would dissipate throughout the day but NSW air quality indexes on Friday morning deemed Sydney’s northwest and southwest regions “hazardous” for air pollution. Sydney’s east was deemed between “very poor” and “hazardous” quality.
The pall of choking bushfire smoke Sydney woke to on Thursday will be replaced by an orange dust haze on Friday as wild winds from the west blow drought-ravaged topsoil east.
More than 80,000 customers were left without power in parts of the state, with Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat hardest-hit, according to service provider Powercor.
The number of NSW homes lost to bushfire hit 612 as fire crews battled 50 blazes still burning in the state. The NSW fires have claimed the lives of six people this bushfire season and more than 1000 firefighters remain in the field.
The Lower and Upper Hunter regions were also enduring hazardous air quality. “Once again over the weekend, because of north-easterly winds, we could actually see that smoke come in again,” RFS spokesperson Ben Shepherd told the Seven Network on Friday morning.
“Until such time that we get a big clearing event, we’re going to have this smoke settling over Sydney each and every morning.” The RFS announced on Thursday that 612 homes had so far been lost in the state’s bushfires, including 530 in the past fortnight alone.
VICTORIA: Code red downgraded.
Meanwhile in Victoria, police are investigating the cause of a grassfire which threatened towns in northern Victoria and forced six families in the area to evacuate. The fire edged close to homes in Strathallan, south of Echuca, on Thursday but firefighters were able to stop its spread.
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An emergency warning in the area, which told residents in Bonn, Fairy Dell, Nanneella, Rochester, Strathallan and Timmering that it was too late to leave has since been downgraded to an advice warning.
“There is currently no threat to you, but you should stay informed and monitor conditions,” the current warning reads.
Six families in the area have been relocated and police are investigating the cause of the blaze.
More than 60 fires burning across the state have been brought under control, with fire danger areas downgraded from ‘code red’, to low-moderate in the south and high in the northern districts. A cold front swept through on Thursday afternoon, sending the temperature down by 10C or more in less than 30 minutes to bring a reprieve for firefighters.
Up to 60,000 homes may not have power restored until Friday afternoon, service providers Powercor and AusNet said.
A total fire ban across Victoria has been lifted.
Thursday’s catastrophe
On Thursday, a mass of hot air tore across the country, leaving catastrophe in its wake, hit Victoria and South Australia, toppling temperature records and whipping up flames, smoke and dust with near-cyclonic winds.
Victoria was placed “in lockdown” as the state held on to its hat and endured the first “code-red” day in a decade. More than 60 fires were fanned by gale-force winds of more than 100km/h.
The hot air mass that escalated the NSW and Queensland fires and turned properties to embers in South Australia descended on Victoria on Thursday, where authorities implemented a statewide plan to avoid a disaster.
“We had to put it into total fire ban in order to minimise the risk of having major fires commence now in November and seeing campaign fires like we’ve got in NSW,” said Victorian Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville. “We locked down the state to do that.”
More than 2000 firefighters were deployed to battle the blazes.
Darrell Phillips, captain of Echuca Village Fire Brigade, was fighting a grass fire at Strathallan when the wind changed.
He had to take shelter after an ember landed in his ear.
“That wind was absolutely unbelievable and it went on and on for about 15 minutes,” Mr Phillips told The Australian.
“I knew if we lost control of the fire at that point and it broke away, we couldn’t have stopped it.”
Orange dust
Mildura in Victoria’s northwest was blanketed in orange dust while north-westerly winds covered Melbourne with thick haze from the state’s inland.
Bureau of Meteorology spokesman Kevin Parkyn said Melbourne experienced its hottest November day in more than a century, with the mercury hitting 40.9C. Laverton was the hottest town in Victoria at 44.3C.
“We had to go searching through the record books pretty hard to find a day where we recorded a temperature like that in Melbourne,” Mr Parkyn said.
“In fact 1894, so over 100 years ago. In over 30 years working at the bureau, I don’t recall a day like this.”
Despite the heat and wind in Victoria, no lives were lost and property losses were kept to a minimum.
Six emergency fire warnings were issued and two properties were destroyed as firefighters battled blazes at Strathallan, near Rochester.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA: Edithburgh dodges bullet
The tiny fishing town of Edithburgh on the southern tip of South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula dodged a bullet, with a raging bushfire stopping just metres short of engulfing the entire town on Thursday.
While 11 properties were lost and 33 people suffered minor injuries, the town, population 516, was nearly engulfed by an out-of-control blaze that started in neighbouring Yorketown on Wednesday, fuelled by northerly winds and 42C temperatures.
Just before sunrise on Thursday, Edithburgh residents started receiving text messages from the Country Fire Service telling them to leave their homes and head to the town jetty and beach pool, with others evacuated to the nearby coastal hamlet of Stansbury.
SANFL football legend Scott Hodges, who has a shack in Edithburgh, told The Australian the past 24 hours had been “totally terrifying”.
“It’s a pretty good result in the end, though, but cripes, we were lucky, the whole joint could have gone up,” he said.
Additional reporting: Debbie Schipp, Ean Higgins, AAP
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