2023-10-03 21:17:44
Sydney (agencies)
Yesterday, fire services in the state of Victoria in eastern Australia asked residents to leave or take shelter if they were not able to flee, after strong winds fanned fires that officers had “difficulty” in extinguishing.
State Fire Authority official Jason Heffernan said that about 650 firefighters were fighting fires burning in an area of 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres).
There were reports of winds reaching speeds of up to 80 kilometers per hour around the East Gippsland region, about 250 kilometers east of Melbourne.
Emergency services issued evacuation orders for nine rural neighborhoods, saying the fires “threaten homes and lives.”
It asked people who had not yet left from seven other neighborhoods to take shelter immediately; Because “it is too late to leave the area safely.”
“We are seeing sporadic fires, and firefighters are doing everything they can to try to contain this fire, but they are facing difficulty,” Heffernan told Australian Public Radio.
He added that the fires are “burning on private property, and in some pine plantations, so the next two hours will be very difficult for firefighters on the ground.”
Rain is expected to help put out the fire by late afternoon, Heffernan said.
On the other hand, the state’s emergency services said that a forest fire “got out of control” in an area of Flinders Island in the state of Tasmania, although recent rainfall slowed its spread.
After several rainy years, experts expect that the next Australian summer will bring the most intense bushfire season since 2019-2020.
During that “Black Summer,” forest fires broke out along the eastern coast of Australia, destroying vast areas of forests, killing millions of animals, and covering cities in smoke.
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