Three missing, including child, as fire rips through Victorian town
Updated ,first published
An out-of-control bushfire destroyed a central Victorian town, left three people missing, threatened the popular tourist town of Alexandra and prompted evacuation warnings in Marysville Friday night as hundreds of firefighters battled two large blazes and dozens of smaller fires across the state.
Ahead of Friday, authorities had repeatedly warned of challenging conditions across Victoria, the worst since the 2019-20 Black Summer, and by midday conditions were worse than expected; At least 60 new fires were burning across the state due to extremely hot and dry conditions.
Firegrounds were burning in extreme heat, bushfires were producing their own lightning, strong swirling breezes threatened to keep firefighting planes grounded and the 8pm weather forecast – the most dangerous part of bushfire fighting – loomed large in central Victoria.
Firefighters spent most of the day battling two large fires in the central part of the state and the northeast; Strong winds and high temperatures in the afternoon ignited grass fires that were rapidly moving across the state.
By 5pm, the state’s online bushfire dashboard had become a sea of red alerts, with evacuation orders issued for towns such as Harcourt south of Bendigo, Skipton in western Victoria, as well as Kinglake and Marysville, which were devastated by the 2009 fires.
In the Yarra Valley town of Marysville, about half an hour’s drive from fire-ravaged Alexandra, the air was thick with smoke and the streets were covered in ash. By Friday night, most people had left the area, which usually attracts tourists heading to Lake Mountain Alpine Resort. But local Duck Inn bar owner Hong Yoo and a few of his regulars remained there.
An emergency alert was issued around 5.15pm on Friday, urging residents to leave the area immediately.
“I can’t see anyone in town, but there are two people at the bar checking the news with me,” Hong said as regulars chatted in the background. “There’s just smoke. We’re very lucky; there’s no wind, the temperature has dropped a little bit. Honestly, if something happens, I can go to the community center.”
One of the two major blazes was the Longwood blaze at the center of firefighters’ concerns, which started in central Victoria on Thursday and moved steadily southeast towards larger centers including Yea and Alexandra.
On Friday morning, reports began coming in from the small village of Ruffy, which is directly in the fire’s path. At least 10 houses were destroyed here, as well as the community center and telephone switchboard. One firefighter was taken to the hospital with third-degree burns. The true death toll here will only be known when it is safe enough for firefighters to descend on the site.
“It looks like an atomic bomb went off,” local CFA captain George Noye told ABC Radio on Friday morning. “[I’m] now it’s just down the main street, we’ve lost the old school, the old Ruffy’s food store is no more, there are three houses on the main street. We lost countless homes in the region. Ten firefighters I know lost their homes.” The demolished old school had been converted into a community centre; Ruffy has no school.
Authorities were preparing to search for three people — two adults and a child — who had been asked to leave earlier in Longwood East, just north of Ruffy. When firefighters later returned to the same address, the house was completely unusable. In nearby Tarcombe, an unconfirmed story emerged that a zookeeper was housed in a dam with six animals while his property was destroyed by fire.
Survivors brought stories of scorched moonscapes, razed houses and dead sheep.
As the Longwood fire progresses, updated modeling has suggested strong winds could push the fire towards the towns of Yea and Alexandra, which attract summer holidaymakers and campers.
Locals were told to stop using water “until absolutely necessary” by 2pm, as firefighters needed pressure for their hoses. Maps published by authorities by 5pm showed that the fire had spread to the edges of the town and had also engulfed the nearby hamlets of Molesworth, population 91, and Yarck, population 194.
At Yea, just west of Alexandra, the only sound was the roar of fire trucks under orange skies choked with thick, gray smoke. All shops were closed except for local service stations and a supermarket, which remained open for firefighters battling fires in areas surrounding the historic city.
Most residents had left the town, but Paul Heyen remained in town to maintain the home he had lived in for over 40 years. Heyen, who is training as a volunteer firefighter in Tasmania, has filled his garden with buckets of water and keeps a battery-powered hose ready to douse any embers that may fall on his home.
Dozens of people sought shelter from the fires in the Seymour regional center on the fire’s eastern edge. “There are people sleeping in the basketball stadium. There are pets everywhere,” Strathbogie Shire Deputy Mayor Claire Ewart-Kennedy said. “It’s pretty confronting.”
The area’s mayor was fighting fires on his property as Ewart-Kennedy spoke. “This is a disaster. Three people are missing. We lost a significant amount of livestock, property and God knows what else at Ruffy and Longwood,” he said. “This is beyond serious. I’ve never felt so helpless and scared of what’s going to happen.”
Further north, a second major fire was burning near Walwa, near Albury-Wodonga.
The fire broke out on Friday and moved south-east towards Corryong, after destroying bush and pine plantations on Thursday.
Firefighters were fearful of a weather change forecast for Friday night, when the fire was expected to spread eastward into the town. By Friday afternoon they were urging locals to leave immediately.
Cheryl Winter, owner of the Corryong Courthouse Hotel, said she planned to stay and had recently bought a generator from Albury to keep the town’s best pub running. “We will keep the air conditioners and beer taps on for anyone who wants to come in from the heat,” he told this imprint.
Weather changes are one of the most dangerous parts of firefighting, as they can turn the side of a fire into a long fire front. The cool change that swept through Melbourne around 5pm was not expected to affect fire-affected areas until late at night.
Longwood temperatures reached 41.3 degrees in the afternoon, with wind gusts up to 40 mph forecast. Near Walwa, the temperature reached 37.3 degrees and winds reached 40 kilometers per hour.
More than 75,000 homes across the state are without power as major utility companies continue to grapple with dynamic fire conditions. The State Emergency Service has fielded 539 calls for help across Victoria since midnight; 420 of these were for downed trees. Harmful winds are expected to worsen this evening following a wind change, but a gust of 112 kilometers per hour was recorded on Mount Gellibrand in the southwest at around 1.20pm.
In the afternoon heat, people in Skipton and Horsham, just east of Ballarat, faced flash emergency alerts after fast-moving grass fires broke out and raced towards the towns.
Dozens of roads remain closed across the state in both directions between Seymour and Violet Town, including the Hume Highway.
Broede Carmody is The Age’s health correspondent. He was previously the state political correspondent for The Age and national news blogger for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect with: excitement or email.
