A total fire-ban has been declared across all of Victoria on boxing day, with authorities expecting the most extreme fire conditions since the black summer bushfires five years ago. Several bushfires are already burning across the state. But it's the 43-thousand-hectare bushfire in the Grampians state forest that remains the focus of fire-fighting efforts.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00At his property on the eastern edge of the Grampians, Graeme Nicholson could find himself
00:07in the firing line on Thursday evening.
00:10Probably not the actual fire, but ember attack potentially is the risk that we face here.
00:17But with a water tanker at the ready, he says he's fully prepared to defend his property.
00:25It should only be like intense grass fire as such.
00:28So stay and defend and hope for the best.
00:32We know on Boxing Day we're going to have really strong northerlies.
00:34A community meeting in Moyston this morning showed just how large an area could be under
00:40threat on Boxing Day if parts of the fire breaks containment lines.
00:46The only way to guarantee your safety in a high bushfire risk area on a day like this
00:50is not to be there.
00:51That's what happened in Halls Gap last weekend when residents fled the Grampians fire.
00:57Today they were given a two hour window to return.
01:01To secure our property, grab any last items that we may need including those Christmas
01:07presents.
01:08Justine Hyde joined dozens of cars waiting to be let in.
01:12Even right now it's very quiet and eerie and all I can hear is aircraft over the top of
01:16me.
01:19The preparations for Thursday are in full swing across Victoria.
01:25We put a call out last night and we've managed to wrangle 26 volunteers to come in and start
01:30setting up some tents for us and so I've wrangled my husband and two kids to come as well.
01:36Communities around the Grampians have had days to prepare for Thursday but with extreme
01:40conditions forecast across most of the state on Boxing Day, the CFA says any new fires
01:46will have a very real potential to be life threatening.
01:50It is the fire we don't know about that will be the fire that obviously is the concern.
01:55With those winds it's not going to take much.
01:58An entire state urged to stay alert.