A fire emergency is unfolding in Victoria with hot and windy conditions fuelling a number of blazes. As the bushfires threaten communities in the state's west thunderstorms have caused power outages and transport delays for Melbourne residents. More than 500-thousand customers are without power.
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00:00 Victorian SES has issued Take Shelter Now warnings for a number of communities on the
00:07 north and eastern edges of the Grampians National Park.
00:10 That includes Dadswell Bridge, Roses Gap, Pomonal, Leadcourt and a number of others.
00:17 I'm afraid the blustery winds are extremely strong and if you go just a short while south
00:24 of Horsham you'll immediately run into overwhelming smoke.
00:27 My colleague and I were out there just a few hours ago and we were asked to leave along
00:32 with some of those communities.
00:34 In fact conditions are changing so quickly that storms and wind directions cannot be
00:38 relied upon at this point and people should be extremely cautious in their actions even
00:42 if they are not under one of those Take Shelter warnings.
00:45 Let's have a listen to what authorities have said this afternoon.
00:49 We also have some significant storms moving across the state.
00:52 We've seen significant hail in a number of areas.
00:58 Very very strong winds to such a degree that they've even brought down some power lines
01:02 in Anarchy.
01:03 Some high voltage power lines have been downed over there.
01:07 Yeah Angus I understand some of those winds blowing around where you are through today
01:11 have been up to 80km/h and that's in really hot conditions as well and we can hear that
01:17 wire on the flagpole slapping against the flagpole there behind you.
01:23 So those winds are still pretty strong now?
01:28 Yeah absolutely I mean you might have caught just a moment ago the tripod that my camera
01:32 is resting on actually got moved and that's the first time I've ever had that happen.
01:37 Winds have been extremely strong all afternoon and they have been moving in directions.
01:41 I was speaking to a farmer this afternoon who said he has no confidence that his farm
01:46 will be safe by the end of the day.
01:49 Power outages are still very much an issue across much of Victoria's West including parts
01:54 of Geelong, the surf coast, Ballarat, Maryborough.
01:58 Power core has indicated that those are directly a result of the storm damage.
02:03 And so Angus there are those two fires at emergency level right now.
02:07 You're at the fire just to the north in that northern part of the Grampians.
02:14 Was there much smoke involved with that blaze when you were there or you could see flames
02:20 or you were kept a fair way away from it?
02:25 My colleague and I from the ABC office here were among the last people to see that fire
02:31 as it was spreading and yes there was an extreme amount of smoke.
02:34 It was a mixture of finer white smoke and really thick black smoke.
02:39 There were flames visible on the crest of the Grampians mountains.
02:43 I believe it was Mount Stapleton and we were eventually ushered away from the area and
02:48 told to return to Horsham.
02:51 It's extremely dangerous and the speed of the winds and the density of the bushland
02:56 means that that can continue to spread and get worse very, very quickly.
03:00 Yeah and it sounds like there's particular concern for that community of Pomona which
03:04 is in the path of that fire to the southern area of the Grampians.
03:10 Is that Pomona, is it a little community?
03:16 Pomona is a relatively small community and it's nestled very much within the Grampians,
03:22 the forested area around the mountains themselves.
03:24 So that community is one of the ones that has been asked to take shelter immediately
03:29 because it is no longer safe to leave and for good reason.
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