Australian cities evacuated over Christmas due to bushfires

Residents of a bushfire-ravaged region of Australia were given two hours to return home to collect their belongings before Christmas on Tuesday as emergency crews try to contain the blaze.

Communities around the Grampians in Victoria state have been evacuated amid warnings from authorities that conditions in the coming days could be the worst since Australia’s worst fire season, the so-called “black summer” of 2019-20.

The wildfires had already burned more than 41,000 hectares (101,000 acres) of land last week, but there were no deaths or property damage.

The sweltering heat forecast for Boxing Day has also prompted a series of fire warnings across the country.

Temperatures across Victoria are expected to reach 40C (104F) with strong, dry winds, while parts of South Australia and New South Wales could also face bushfires from Thursday to Friday.

“We are expecting extreme fire danger across most of the state,” said Luke Hegarty, a spokesman for Victoria’s State Control Centre.

“This is the most significant fire danger the state has seen — in all areas of the state we’re talking about — since the Black Summer. It is important that people understand that Thursday is a day with serious potential,” he added.

Four interstate fire brigades and two incident response teams of more than 100 will land in Victoria in the coming days to give a reprieve to emergency crews who have been working around the clock to tackle the ongoing fires.

The decision to allow families around the Grampians temporary access to their homes “to get Christmas goods … presents and such” was made by State Fire Authority (CFA) chief officer Jason Heffernan on Tuesday morning.

“(It’s) to make sure that when Halls Gap residents are resettled for Christmas, at least they’ll have what they need,” he told Seven’s Sunrise programme.

Mary Ann Brown, who lives on the southern edge of the Grampians National Park, told the ABC her community was on edge for the holidays.

“We won’t be out of the woods until we get a really good drop of rain, and that might not come until March or April, so it’s going to be a long summer.”

Parts of Australia have been on high alert for bushfire danger this summer after several quieter seasons compared to 2019-20. linked to hundreds of deaths and covered 24 million hectares of land.

In recent years, the country has lurched from disaster to disaster, experiencing both record floods and intense heatwaves as it feels the effects of climate change.