Australia Fires: Thousands Told To Evacuate In Victoria
Source: BBC News
3 hrs. ago. Tens of thousands of residents and holidaymakers in the Australian state of Victoria have been told to evacuate amid worsening bushfire conditions. Temperatures of over 40C (104F), strong winds, thunderstorms and a change of wind direction meant Monday would be a day of extreme danger, officials said.
Emergencies chief Andrew Crisp said those in the East Gippsland area should leave no later than Monday morning. More than 100 fires are continuing to burn across Australia. The biggest are raging near the city of Sydney in New South Wales, where more than a quarter of a million people have signed a petition calling for the New Year's Eve fireworks to be cancelled and the money spent on fighting fires.
What are the risks in Victoria? In East Gippsland, three fires burning near the towns of Bruthen, Buchan and Bonang were forecast to grow significantly. Officials said they could burn towards the coast, potentially crossing and cutting off the region's main road.
An estimated 30,000 people are currently holidaying in the threatened area, according to ABC News. What we are saying now, based on the conditions that will be confronting us tomorrow across the state, but in particular in East Gippsland, is that if you're holidaying in that part of the state, it's time that you left," he said. It was no longer possible to provide assistance to all the visitors in the East Gippsland region, emergency authorities said...
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50938504
Due to the fire emergency music and New Years festivals in the state have been cancelled. It is currently (early) summer season in Australia.
- More than 100 fires continue to burn across Australia.
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Looks like Inhofe can start trying to throw fireballs in the Senate.
No, Senator. Global Climate Change is not only real but is several steps ahead of us because of idiots like you.
From a few minutes ago.
Gippsland is the southern section, east of Melbourne. I'm in West Gippsland which is roughly 200kms west of the worst fires in the east.
Bracing for a very hot day. Bowls of water filled for the birds and insects (a few floating twigs for insects to land on). House locked down and dark.
It's 9am and already about 32 deg.C.
Three people are unaccounted for amid a bushfire crisis sweeping the New South Wales South Coast.
RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said three people were also missing and feared dead after the fires: two in the town of Cobargo, and one in Belowra.
It is unclear whether they were firefighters.
The fires currently at emergency warning level include a fire at Badja Forest Road, Countegany, north of Bega; a fire on the Clyde Mountain, near the Kings Highway; and the massive Currowan fire, which has burned through hundreds of thousands of hectares north of Batemans Bay over the past month.
Another two fires joined up west of Tuross Head at Dampier, with the combined blaze also burning at emergency level.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-31/nsw-south-coast-fires-rfs-emergency-warnings/11833712
My sister rang me this morning from Tuross Head. She said she's in the safest spot on the coast right now and will head to the beach if it gets dangerous, but I can't help worrying about her
Not affected by fires, those in East Gippsland are couple of hundred kms away.
Thousands of people taking refuge on the foreshore of Mallacoota, fires have reached town outskirts. And it's still only early summer. 
