00:00The conditions have eased considerably. It's a lot cooler today than it was yesterday when
00:06it was getting up into those high 30s. Winds have also dropped, although they are changeable,
00:12gusting, coming and going, but not as strong again as they were yesterday. I'm just outside
00:18of Ararat at the moment. We're about 20km from the fire front. This is about as close
00:23as well as we've been able to get and as most people have been able to get to the fire.
00:29The police are letting some residents through who have property in the area to attend to
00:34livestock but they have been keeping things very safe around this area. As you mentioned
00:41there have been some losses, fences, sheds, there have been stock losses and of course
00:48the damage to the Grampians National Park itself has been enormous. It's a beautiful
00:53area of bushland with many native species, flora and fauna and we can only begin to think
01:01about what has been lost there. At the moment we're looking at 74,000 hectares that have
01:07been burnt through the Grampians National Park here in Western Victoria and as has been
01:12said that's around the size of Singapore. So it is enormous and firefighters have been
01:19doing an incredible job. No residents' homes have been lost that we know of or lives lost
01:25or injuries which is an excellent outcome. There has been damage to the communications
01:31towers at Mount Williams. The power to one of the towers was affected by the fires. They
01:38have been using generators and batteries to get that power going again but there could
01:43be inconsistent coverage. That tower in particular was providing coverage for the MBN and Optus
01:50networks so people relying on those networks are warned that there may be inconsistent
01:56coverage until those towers are completely fixed and we've restored power to them. There's
02:03been about 163 registrations at relief centres overnight. Relief centres were set up in Stall,
02:11Hamilton and Ararat. There was also one at Skipton and some smaller centres which have
02:16now been closed. The biggest centre was at Stall where around 35 people spent the night
02:24last night. Five people spent the night in Hamilton and 26 at the Ararat Relief Centre.
02:30Others have been in motels nearby. So now firefighters are focusing on recovery and
02:38relief efforts. We got an update from the emergency services just a short time ago and
02:44this is some of what they had to say. People will still see a lot of smoke and those firefighters
02:52will be introducing much more fire into the landscape to prepare inevitably for the next
03:00spike day. It's not in the forecast, it's not in the outlook but it will come and the
03:04work that our firefighters are doing now in the communities and in the National Park
03:11will be really important to ensure that we stop those fires from spreading again in the
03:17next time we get a spike day in fire weather. So what are the current warnings in place?
03:27Well the best news of today is that all the warnings have been downgraded to watch and
03:32act. So that is excellent news and some residents will be able to return this afternoon, authorities
03:38hope, to the areas of Moyston, Pomona and Willowra. They will be able to return to their
03:44homes. Other fires in the state have also been downgraded. Those were fires at the Gurdies,
03:49Creswick and Belongarook which are now under control. There were some lightning strikes
03:54yesterday, around 250 lightning strikes and there have been some small fires that have
03:58been set off in the Alpine regions which authorities are keeping a very close eye
04:03on, of course, ahead of a predicted spike as summer progresses and the weather inevitably
04:10heats up again. But the fires here in the Grampians, although they have eased, they
04:15are expected to be burning for many more weeks.
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