Lightning strikes have started 8 new fires in Victoria and firefighters are still battling three major blazes burning out of control. Overnight storms failed to ease the situation, where rain doused some flames and strong winds fanned other outbreaks. Meanwhile more reinforcements have been called from interstate, to help fight the fires.and more than 500 New South Wales firefighters have joined their Victorian colleagues to fight the bushfire emergency in that state.
None of the fires is posing a threat to homes, but bushfires at the Grampians in the state's west, at Moondarra in Gippsland and at Kinglake north-east of Melbourne are yet to be brought under control. Hundreds of volunteer firecrews from around the state battled the fires in conditions of 40+ degrees, while vicious winds whipped the fires through forests and grasslands, changing fronts and making the job of predicting the fires' path very difficult.
So far two fatalities have been recorded, with the bodies of two people recovered near Ararat. Thousands of homes have come under direct threat, and weather forecasts indicate there will be little respite for firecrews across the state as they work to contain and extinguish hotspots and flareups.
The Moondarra fires in Gippsland threatened Yallourn North on Sunday 22nd of January causing millions of dollars damage to pine and eucalypt plantations. The dense, hilly terrain of the Brisbane Ranges, roughly 40km south east from Ballarat, is normally notable for one distinguishing feature; massive eucalypt trees as far as the eye can see, providing one of Victoria's best environments for koalas as well as one of the richest diversities of wildflowers. After weekend lightning strikes ignited massive bushfires, nearly 6,000 hectares of land are now blackened, with a relatively small number of homes destroyed.
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