THE Victorian tourist town of Halls Gap has come under ember attack from a bushfire raging in the Grampians National Park which has also claimed a man’s life.
People in the town have been urged to evacuate as authorities warn of serious danger from the fire, which has already damaged buildings in the area.
“There is a fair chance of losing property and even, if people are caught in the wrong space, a life could be lost,” Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley told reporters.
The Australian’s Rachel Baxendale said ash and burning leaves had begun falling on Halls Gap, about 230km west of Melbourne, after a south-westerly wind change.
Baxendale said the sky had lit up bright orange, looking from Halls Gap towards the nearby tourist village of Zumstein.
“There is an intensely red sky over the Grampians,” she said.
The ember attack came shortly after police reported a man had died in the 21,000 hectare Grampians fire.
Police said the body was found at a house in Roses Gap, which is in the Grampians National Park.
The death at Roses Gap came after local medical facilities told The Australian two additional residents were admitted to hospital in the past 24 hours with injuries caused by the fire.
Halls Gap was lucky to escape the worst of the 2006 fires that devastated the park.
This afternoon’s wind change was expected to dramatically increase the size of the fire and had the potential to cause havoc, Mr Lapsley said.
“Today is one of those days that certainly will be marked in the history of Victoria for the types of fires and the conditions that have led up to it,” Mr Lapsley told reporters.
He said the Grampians fire had caused a 12-kilometre convection column that was creating its own weather. The fire was generating lightning and dropping spotfires around Halls Gap.
As authorities doorknocked Halls Gap and the surrounding area, they issued the stark message: “Leave and live”.
Also warned to leave by 3pm were residents and visitors at Pomonal, Bellfield, Lake Fyans, Lake Lonsdale, Roses Gap, Dadswells Bridge, Heatherlie and Ledcourt.
Rohan McDonald, owner of the Halls Gap Lakeside Tourist Park, said a very large plume of smoke that looks like an atomic bomb is visible in the town.
He said his 100 campsites and 20 cabins have been evacuated.
“They all started leaving last night when they saw the big red glow on top of the mountain,” he said.
The Grampians blaze is one of 68 fires burning across Victoria, with 12 believed deliberately lit – most on the urban fringes of Melbourne.
Among the other major blazes is an out-of-control bushfire in Gippsland, in the state’s east, which Emergency Services Minister Kim Wells could soon cover as much as 500,000 hectares, authorities predict.
Mr Wells said efforts would be made to protect electricity transmission lines in the area.
There is an emergency warning for a fire at Club Terrace near Mallacoota with an out-of-control fire threatening to hit the area.
Seven bushfires are burning out of control across Victoria’s north-west Mallee region, with one of the main focuses of firefighters a 6500-hectare blaze in parkland near Ouyen.
Another high priority is a 20,000-hectare blaze in the Big Desert Wilderness Park near the South Australian border.
But this afternoon, the major concern was for the Grampians fire.
Horsham mayor David Grimble, who lives at Wartook, said assets had been lost in the area.
“`As far as fire conditions go, they’re probably the worst we can have,” he told Fairfax Radio.
“We would have some asset loss, there’s no question about that. “We’d certainly have some stock loss and some fencing loss, but what exactly has been lost, I don’t have a good handle on that.”
Brimpaen resident Steve Price said he had been up all night with his 77-year-old father trying to save his wilderness cabin accommodation.
“It was a lot of hard work and we did it and my dad and I hung in,” he told Fairfax Radio.
“The size of it and the scale of it, the heat and the fuel, we were very lucky to have got through it.”
Lightning sparked 25 new fires across Victoria overnight, while the heatwave continued to scorch the state.
Temperatures were today expected to reach 44C in Melbourne, the fourth day in a row above 40 degrees.
The mercury will also reach 44C in Horsham near the Grampians, with the chance of a late storm.
Horsham was already 35.6C by 9am with winds gusting to 33km/h.
An ambulance spokesman said there had been 51 cardiac arrests today, “a significant increase on what we would normally see”.
“There was an hour this morning where we were seeing one cardiac arrest every six minutes,” he said.
A total fire ban has been declared for the entire state, with extreme fire conditions forecast for the Wimmera and southwest regions.
Fire conditions were rated severe in all other regions except East Gippsland, where they are rated very high.
A section of the Hume Freeway near Epping on Melbourne’s northern outskirts is closed with multiple grassfires running near the road.
There are also fires in central and east Gippsland and on the Victoria-South Australia border.