Air quality alert issued as Otways bushfire grows
Smoke haze blanketed Melbourne on Sunday morning as a fire in the Otway Ranges grew overnight, triggering an emergency warning as it bears down on a small town.
The Carlisle River fire is now within a kilometre of Gellibrand, 57 kilometres north-west of Apollo Bay, after it breached containment lines on Saturday amid scorching heat, expanding to about 8000 hectares on Saturday night.
The Bureau of Meteorology forecast that Melbourne would reach a maximum temperature of 25 degrees on Sunday, providing some respite before extreme heat returns on Tuesday.
An air quality notice has been issued for Greater Melbourne and Geelong as winds push the Otway fire smoke across central Victoria, but the Environmental Protection Agency still rated the air quality as fair in Spotswood early on Sunday.
An updated emergency warning for the Carlisle River fire, issued at 5.19am, said the blaze was being pushed east towards Gellibrand, which has a population of 230.
“The fire has grown overnight and is now within one kilometre of Gellibrand,” the “take shelter now” alert said. “This fire may impact homes and lives in Gellibrand.”
A total fire ban remains active for the Northern Country, North Central, North East, and Gippsland fire districts today.
Chief Fire Officer Chris Hardman on Friday singled out the Dargo and Walwa fires in the state’s High Country as being of particular concern amid the current heatwave.
“We have active fire behaviour on the Walwa, Mount Lawson fire. The wind change will not get through to that fire, so that’s going to put a lot of pressure on the southern edge of that fire, and we expect that fire to move in the coming days,” he said.
“We also have a fire around Dargo in the Wonnangatta area … that fire is starting to increase in activity now. It’s not currently moving, but it’s one to watch.”
More than 1000 structures have been damaged by bushfires in Victoria so far this summer, 289 of them homes.
The Longwood fire devastated parts of central Victoria earlier this month, but it is now contained.
In the state’s west, Mildura, Nhill, Hopetoun and Horsham all reached 42 degrees on Saturday.
The Australian Open was suspended briefly as temperatures reached 38.1 degrees at Melbourne Park, while Mount Gellibrand near the Otways fire ground reached 38.6 degrees.
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