00:00That means that any fires that are in our landscape today already, or those that may start,
00:05will be uncontrollable, unpredictable, and will be very fast-moving.
00:10The areas that are in catastrophic fire danger rating today is the Wimmera, the Southwest,
00:17North Country, and North Central districts. The remainder of the state is in extreme fire
00:23danger rating. So anywhere in the state today will be challenging and difficult conditions
00:28for our firefighters. With the winds that we'll see today, there will be periods where our aviation
00:34fleet, that is over 70 aircraft today, will not be able to fly. And so we are reminding communities
00:41you need to heed the warnings to leave now. If you're in a bushfire-prone area, a bushland area
00:47of Victoria, our strongest advice is leave now if you haven't left already. If you don't leave now,
00:55it could result in your life being lost. Firefighters have been working very hard in these
01:01challenging and difficult conditions overnight on a range of fires. This morning we've had 40 fires
01:07already in the landscape. 30 of those remain active. As a result of the dynamic and challenging
01:14conditions on the Longwood fire, I can now confirm that we have had community and residential
01:21property losses. We know that we have had the community centre and the telephone exchange damaged
01:27or lost at the township of Ruffey, and in and around the Ruffey township there are multiple
01:34homes that have been lost to fire. We can't confirm those numbers at this stage. It's still too dangerous
01:40to get in and on the ground, but we have seen through our aerial intelligence gathering helicopters
01:46that we have lost multiple properties in and around the Ruffey area. On the Wawa Fire in the north of the
01:53state, we've also seen damage to a significant pine plantation there. 1,200 to 1,600 hectares of pine
02:01plantation in 22 years of age, so well-matured pine plantation, has also been lost. But at this stage,
02:09there have not been any property losses reported as a result of that significant fire. But overnight,
02:16with lightning, we have seen a range of fires pop up across the state, particularly in Gippsland,
02:21and Chief Fire Officer Chris Hardman will speak about that shortly.
02:26Obviously, our thoughts are very much with the communities in and around the Longford fire
02:31at the moment where those property losses have occurred, and we will get around and support those
02:36communities today, and the Premier will speak more about that in a moment. Our fire chiefs will also
02:43speak about the potential impact zone maps for the two significant fires, being the Longwood fire and
02:48also the Walworth-Mount Lawson fire. However, we do have a number of warnings already in place.
02:56So for the Longwood fire, there are two emergency warnings and two watch and act warnings in place
03:02already for that fire, and people need to heed those warnings. For the Walworth fire, we have three
03:09emergency warnings and four watch and act warnings in place. And again, for the communities in and
03:14around that fire, you need to heed those warnings now. We also have advice warnings out for a complex of
03:21fires down in the Gippsland region. Late yesterday, we saw 92 personnel from New South Wales Fire Rescue,
03:30sorry, Rural Fire Service join us from New South Wales to bolster our efforts here in Victoria,
03:38and they've been deployed out to the Longwood fire this morning. We've also requested an additional 117
03:45interstate personnel that will arrive on Saturday to be available for Sunday, and that is a mix of
03:52incident management team personnel along with additional firefighters into the landscape.
04:00Q&A.
Comments