Victoria on high bushfire alert amid extreme heat and strong winds

Emergency Management Commissioner Rick Nugent said that whilst no residential homes have been lost, many are on the fringes of the bushfires.

Transcript

00:00We have strong gustly northerly winds at the moment and that's pushing some of

00:05the fire south of the Grampians and is also making it difficult for any new

00:09starts that occur across the state which have had a number of already. This will

00:14be followed by a change in wind conditions that will move across to the

00:17southwest or more westerly and southwesterly which again make it really

00:21problematic for firefighters with any of those existing fires. We have four

00:26existing fires at the moment that we are really concerned about. That is the

00:30Grampians, the Gerties near Lang Lang, Bullunguruk fire near Gisborne and also

00:35the Creswick fire. So they have the potential in those winds to take off

00:39again which will be difficult for firefighters to hold. The Grampians fire

00:45has now burnt around 55,000 hectares. We know there's considerable environmental

00:51damage in the Grampians but also into some of the interface there with private

00:55lands with fenced damages, we have stock losses. We also believe some outbuildings

01:01and sheds have been damaged from the fires. We have no reports as yet of

01:06residential homes but there are many residential homes in the bush

01:11areas on the edges of the Grampians so I wouldn't be surprised at some point if

01:16we do have residential losses but firefighters I can say are doing

01:20everything possible to protect life and protect property in what they're doing.

01:25We have three relief centres open at the moment, Ararat, Stall and Hamilton so

01:32they are there for residents that are displaced and that have left their homes.

01:37As I've said regularly we have done all we can do to prepare for this current

01:43spike day and tomorrow. Tomorrow will also be challenging because those

01:47westerlies will continue through the afternoon, evening and into tomorrow so

01:52there will still be some tricky fire conditions.