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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Calla Wahlquist (now) and Lisa Cox (earlier)

NSW and Victoria survey damage as 'megablaze' forms – as it happened

Rural Fire Service crews in Penrose, NSW
Rural Fire Service crews in Penrose, in the NSW southern highlands. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

A little rain and a bit of rest

We will leave our coverage of the ongoing bushfire crisis here for the night. A mercifully quiet day on firegrounds across the country.

Here is where things stand:

  • Warmer temperatures and elevated winds in the afternoon caused an increase in fire activity in Victoria and southern New South Wales, but fire activity remained much less significant than it was on Friday.
  • A NSW man is receiving treatment in hospital for serious burns sustained defending his property at Tumbarumba.
  • Parts of Victoria received a bit of rain last night –between 1mm and 5mm fell on fires in the north-east and more than 10mm fell in parts of Gippsland – but the rain did not reach fires in southern NSW, and is not enough to stop them burning.
  • As of 8pm there was an emergency warning current for Mount Buffalo and the Buckland Valley, which were on the northern side of the 60,000ha Abbeyard fire. That warning was due to fire burning down from Goldie Spur into the valley. There were four other watch-and-act alerts out for that fire, as well as two watch and act alerts in East Gippsland, for the Cann River fire, and one covering the Corryong fire.
  • On the NSW side of the border, there were watch and act alerts for fires in the Snowy Mountains and the south coast, in the Wadbilliga national park.
  • Visitors have been told they can return to Kangaroo Island and urged to return to the NSW south coast, where most roads have reopened. Roads remain closed throughout East Gippsland and communities, including the seaside tourist town of Mallacoota, remain cut off.
  • The mayor of the Alpine shire, which is under threat from the Abbeyard fire, estimates the cost to tourism in his shire alone will be $90m.

Thanks for your company today, and enjoy this temporary reprieve. We still have a long summer to go. And remember – February is historically the most dangerous fire month in south-east Australia.

Stay safe.

Updated

We have a bit more information about the man who was burned while defending his property near Tumbarumba in New South Wales yesterday.

The man was an RFS volunteer, but he was not engaged in RFS work yesterday. Instead, Guardian Australia understands, he was driving a quad bike around his own property defending against spot fires when he received burns to his leg.

He was with some RFS firefighters, who radioed for an ambulance. The pilot of a water-bombing helicopter heard the call and offered to pick the man up and fly him to an ambulance. He was transferred to the burns unit at Concord Hospital in Sydney on Saturday and is receiving treatment for severe burns to his hands, legs, and elbows.

Three of the four RFS volunteers who did receive injuries while fighting fires yesterday have since returned to the fire ground, and RFS spokesman said.

Media warned not to ignore road closures

Speaking of roads closed in Victoria, Victoria Police issued a message to all media today warning that if journalists continued to “blatantly” ignore traffic management points in East Gippsland, they could face charges.

It recent days we have received multiple reports of journalists blatantly ignoring traffic management points in place for the East Gippsland bushfires. Not only does this increase personal safety risks for those people entering these areas, it is hindering the efforts of emergency services, taking up valuable resources, and damaging the good working relationship in place.

The statement continues:

As this is becoming a reoccurring issue, any further reports or instances where media are not abiding by the law and ignoring traffic management points will be investigated by local police and may be prosecuted under Section 36 of the Emergency Management Act 1986.

Media who are accredited and have current CFA media training are able to access some restricted roads, but not all. Victoria Police said it understood the importance of covering bushfires, but those roads were closed for reasons of safety.

(It should be added that in many cases there is nothing physically closing the road, and not all road blocks are manned.)

A list of all current road closures in Victoria is available here.

Emergency warning for Mount Buffalo

Emergency Victoria has just issued an emergency warning for Mount Buffalo, Buckland, Buckland Junction and surrounds. This area had been at a watch and act level since last night.

The cause of the warning is a fire in Goldie Spur, which has changed direction to burn in a north-east direction down the hill into the Buckland Valley.

Leaving now is the safest option, before conditions become too dangerous. Residents can use the Buckland Valley Road to head toward Porepunkah.

Updated

The New South Wales deputy fire commissioner, Rob Rogers, is urging tourists to return to the south coast. Areas of Shoalhaven and the south coast have been reopened for visitors following property and road assessments.

For contrast, look to Mallacoota, on the Victorian side of the border and impacted by the same fire complex. The road into Mallacoota is still closed while emergency services check and clear trees, and locals reported being told it would remain closed until some signs could be replaced.

Updated

Wombat interlude

Snowy Mountains fires upgraded to watch and act

The RFS has reported an increase in fire in the fires at Dunns Road and the Adaminaby fire complex. Both have been upgraded to watch and act level.

For the Dunns Road fire (part of the new megafire, you’ll recall from earlier) fire activity is increasing south of Tumbarumba. At Adaminaby, the risk is greatest between Yaouk and Lake Ecucumbene.

The Abbeyard fire is joined with an existing smallish, 1,500ha fire that was already burning on Mount Buffalo yesterday. Together those fires raced up the horn, burning trees to the highest point of the mountain.

At lower elevations, the fire moved about 4-5km north/northwest by burning toward the Demon Ridge Track, which is in state forest at the top of the Buckland Valley about 10km south of Wandiligong.

The edge of the fire is now about 10km south of Bright, and the same distance southwest of Harrietville. It did not move into private land yesterday (there is not much around that area) but did burn into freehold land near Carboor, on the western edge of the fire, earlier in the week.

Starting tomorrow night, DELWP incident controller Paul Bates said, fire crews would begin back-burning around that Demon Ridge Track area to bring the edge of the fire out to an accessible point, so firefighters can reach it and black it out.

They have, on current forecasts, about a week to do that work.

We are not, in the next seven days, based on the next seven-day forecast, looking for another spike day ... so we are hoping to start backburning, if conditions are safe, on Sunday evening.

Updated

I’ve just spoken to Paul Bates, who is the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning incident controller for the Ovens region today. That means he is in charge of the Abbeyard fire and protecting communities like Bright and Harrietville.

He explained how they were able to reduce that fire activity yesterday, so it did not reach burn into private land. Basically: it was the helicopters.

During the day we had seven helicopters bombing or dropping water on the fire. That limited fire runs ... they can’t put the fire out but they can slow it down and buy us time.

The helicopters were dropping water scooped from nearby dams. One larger aircraft dropped fire retardant around the Mount Buffalo Chalet, to further protect that heritage building.

The effect of all that water bombing, Bates said, was that when the wind change came through and sent very strong south-westerly winds through the fire ground between 5pm and 8pm, pushing flames in the direction of Bright, Harrietville and surrounds, the fire did not burn as far as predicted.

We were fortunate yesterday in that the predictions that we had did not come about, because we were really well-resourced with aircraft and they worked really hard all day.

Then, shortly after 8pm, it rained. Not a lot – between 2mm and 5mm across the fire ground – but it was enough to further quell fire activity. If something had changed – if that fire at Wodonga had started earlier in the day and required water-bombing helicopters to be diverted, if another new fire had been sparked by lightning and required an urgent response – the more serious predictions of fire agencies could have eventuated.

If something changed ... those fires are more likely to move.

The fire predictions used to decide whether evacuation warnings should be sent out are based on what the fire could do without any suppression activity.

Updated

Over in South Australia they are expecting none of the rainfall that parts of the east will get this week.

But senior forecaster Jon Fischer said conditions would still be “more benign” over the coming week.

Temperatures will peak on Kangaroo Island, where fires are still burning, on Monday and in the southern parts of the state on Tuesday.

The island also hasn’t had much rain in the last change that went through.

Cooler temperatures will reduce fire danger ratings throughout the state this week but there will still be “moderate to fresh winds” that will influence fire activity.

“With a bit of wind about this week at times, we certainly expect fires to continue,” Fischer says. “It’s going to be a dry week.”

Fire conditions will spike again in Victoria – but not for a few days

Here is some more on the weather conditions ahead this week, this time in Victoria and South Australia.

First to Victoria, the Bureau of Meteorology says while conditions are indeed milder today, winds are keeping the fire danger rating very high in the north of the state for both today and tomorrow. The south is faring better with only moderate fire danger.

Temperatures have been a bit cooler on Saturday but that it is not expected to last. Warmer weather will return over the coming days, however the good news is the humidity will increase.

“While the increase in temperature does tend to make fire danger worse, the humidity counteracts that,” senior meteorologist Richard Russell says.

Thunderstorms are also likely for much of the state from Wednesday through to Saturday, with the exception of the south west and the Wimmera.

And they will be wet thunderstorms this time and not the dry thunderstorms we’ve had in recent times.

Russell warns though that the rain over the past couple of days is “nowhere near enough” and the fires will continue and conditions will spike again at some point.

“In the week ahead, it’s that balancing act,” he says. “There are no real strong winds either.

“It’s certainly not as bad as we’ve seen recently, we are still right in the middle of summer though.”

Updated

Kangaroo Island opened for travel

The chief officer of the SA Country Fire Service says tourists and residents are now free to travel to and from Kangaroo Island.

The travel restrictions actually lifted on Friday, but chief officer Mark Jones issued a clarifying statement on Saturday saying there was still some confusion from visitors about accessing the island.

There may have been confusion about travelling to the island.

Under my powers as chief officer, I temporarily enacted restrictions on the island to ensure the priority of emergency services.

The restrictions were removed on Friday and people are able to travel to and from the island.

The CFS has warned that there will continue to be localised flare-ups in the fire ground, and visitors need to remain aware of fire warnings and the risks of travelling to recently-burned areas.

The CFS thanks the community for their patience and understanding as emergency service personnel travelled as priority to attend the fireground.

Updated

Many locals around Bright chose not to evacuate

Roper says that people appeared less likely to take the advice of emergency services to evacuate ahead of yesterday’s extreme fire activity. Even some who evacuated last Saturday, when the state of disaster powers were first invoked, chose to remain at home this time around.

“The vast majority of people that evacuated the first time chose not to go the second time,” Roper says. “They did not perceive the danger to be as great as possibly what it is.”

Roper says some people seem to think that the fire modelling was “wrong” if a risk that was predicted doesn’t come to pass. But he says that the evacuation and “leave now” warnings were only ever intended to tell people how bad things might get on a given day, and how likely it was that the worst case scenario would occur.

He says he still advises that people follow the advice to leave, if they can. If they stay and need firefighting assistance, that pulls resources from elsewhere.

“Staying if you are only going to look after yourself is actually quite a selfish thing to do,” he says.

Updated

Bushfires estimated to cost $90m in lost tourism

It may have escaped the worst-case scenario yesterday, Alpine Shire mayor Peter Roper says, but the region will suffer a significant economic loss. It is now too late to salvage the tourist dollars lost these summer holidays, and not yet safe enough to encourage visitors to return before the end of January.

“We estimate $90m in tourism losses for the Alpine Shire alone,” Roper says.

“Businesses with business interruption insurance, like accommodation providers that can show bookings which were cancelled, will be all right, but for shops or our retailers, you can’t budget for that.

“I think we might lose some businesses. That’s a possibility.”

Updated

So, what’s happening around Bright today?

It is a beautiful day in the Keiwa and Ovens valleys, the Alpine Shire mayor, Peter Roper, says.

“We had bugger all rain [last night], I think about 1mm in the Keiwa Valley,” he tells Guardian Australia. “But today is a delightful day in northeast Victoria, which is mental. You wouldn’t know there was a fire.”

Yesterday the Keiwa and Ovens Valleys were blanketed with smoke from the Abbeyard fire and concerned fire might even threaten Harrietville and Bright.

You couldn’t see more than a few hundred metres in front of you, Roper says. Everyone was anxious and uncomfortable. The southwesterly wind change put the Ovens Valley right in the path of the fire. But days of preparation by both firefighters and local residents prevailed, and the worst-case scenarios did not eventuate.

“Yesterday was pretty horrible,” he says. “It was a horrible sort of day.... You sit and wait in these sort of situations.”

About 5pm, CFA strike teams that had been sitting in wait for spot fires in the Ovens Valley were sent to put out a grassfire at Bandiana, on the outskirts of Wodonga. That fire also cut off one of the exits out of the Keiwa valley. “Everyone started to get a bit twitchy about what was going on,” Roper says.

Then a fire started at Mount Beauty, and local crews “jumped on it.” And that was the worst of it. Apart from some damage to private land on the western edge of the fire, and ember attack in the Buckland Valley, the flames remained in state forest and national park.

The next seven days in NSW

Earlier today NSW RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said fire crews would use milder conditions this week to try “get an upper hand on the fires”.

He said the forecast is for the best seven days they’ve had in terms of fire danger ratings.

The Bureau of Meteorology has some more detail on that.

Temperatures across most of the state over the next couple of days will be cooler and wind gusts will not be of the kind seen on Friday when the southerly moved through.

Senior climatologist Agata Imielska says areas including the Illawarra, Bega, the south coast and the Riverina could still experience gusts of 15-20 km/h, however, which “can still make things challenging on the fireground”.

Fire danger ratings will be low-moderate to high in most areas up until Tuesday, when temperatures will become slightly warmer again and very high fire danger is expected in areas including the southern ranges, the northern slopes and the ACT.

There is also some rain forecast around NSW for later this week, but the BoM says it is too soon to tell how significant that will be.

“It’s a bit of good news to see we’ve got rain on the forecast but at the same time whether it will be significant enough in the context of the fires that’s something we’ll be keeping an eye on,” Imielska says.

Updated

Rachel Baxendale, a reporter from The Australian, is at her parents’ vineyard at Whitlands, which is under a watch and act warning for the Abbeyard fire. It looks beautiful there today, even if you can’t see Mount Buffalo’s horn.

Some big names have joined #AuthorsForFireys. Nick Cave has donated a signed copy of The Sick Bag Song and one of his suits, which, amazing.

Cave grew up around northeast Victoria, so it’s not surprising that he is helping out.

Also American author Cheryl Strayed has donated one of five limited-edition signed, leatherbound editions of her memoir, Wild. The top bid, as of 9am, was $2,000.

Elise Hurst, the artist behind the special illustrated edition of Neil Gaiman’s Ocean at the end of the lane, is also auctioning a copy of that book signed by both her and Gaiman.

This was the scene at the Snowy Mountains town of Adaminaby last night.

Economic impact on northeast Victoria will be ‘massive’

Helen Haines told ABC24 that the economic impact of these bushfires on her electorate would be “massive”. Including, potentially, the loss of the entire 2020 vintage from some vineyards due to smoke taint.

We are a wine region. We are concerned about ongoing smoke issues and smoke taint could destroy entire vintages.

We are examining that issue particularly. These are just a few things but we are very, very concerned that this is going to take significant recovery but we’re not even at the recovery point. We are still in the acute fire face.

Worth noting that every major wine region in Australia is facing the threat of smoke taint.

Tourism has also been affected. In the Alpine Shire alone, Haines said, losses from tourism were estimated to reach $90m.

Agriculture is also struggling, with dairy farmers in the Upper Murray — one of the few dairy regions in Australia that was not on its knees due to drought — forced to tip milk down the drain because they can’t get trucks through, or lost power to refrigerate it. Stock losses in the Upper Murray, from the Corryong fire, are estimated at 1,500 cattle.

Updated

Indi MP: ‘People are tired’

Helen Haines is the independent MP for the federal electorate of Indi, which covers the areas burning in both the Corryong and Abbeyard fires. She spoke to ABC24 earlier, and said the fire risk remains high.

Haines:

[Some] people have elected to stay and people are tired from evacuating several times.

We have months to go. At the moment, yes, [we have] some respite with lovely calm conditions. A lovely gentle breeze. But this is only early January, and our hottest period in this region is February. People are tired.”

Haines said she thinks locals are listening to the “strong warnings from our emergency services.

“That doesn’t mean everyone is evacuating when told, but that people take in the information provided and make their own “risk assessment.”

Updated

The fire situation in Victoria is calmer today, after more than 50 new fires started yesterday and last night.

There is still one emergency alert in place for the upper alpine villages around Mount Hotham — Hotham Heights, Dinner Plain, Flourbag and Davenport Village. That’s wedged in between the Abbeyard fire and other fires burning around Bundara.

Watch and act alerts are in place for the southern, western, and northern flanks of the Abbeyard fire, in the King Valley, Ovens Valley, and surrounds. There are also two watch and act alerts for the Corryong/Dunns Road megafire on the Victorian side of the border. The NSW side of the border is currently at an advice level.

All other fires in the state, including the grassfire that was elevated to emergency warning level on the outskirts of Wodonga last night, and all of the Gippsland fires, are at advice level.

Here’s an aerial view of the Corryong fire, via ABC journo Erin Somerville.

These before and after photos, taken by Ross Evans, are apocalyptic.

The unchanged blue ocean makes things look even more jarring, because when we see these kind of images they’re often overlaid by a weird Hollywood filter. But no, these are real photos of one of Australia’s most important ecological reserves.

The fire area on Kangaroo Island is 215,868ha, as of 4am today. That’s 49% of the island’s total landmass.

About two-thirds of the island is currently under a watch and act alert, and there are specific warnings about the threat of falling trees in burned areas.

What kind of action would satisfy the thousands of people who joined those climate protests, one reporter asked?

Said Albanese:

It would help if we had a government that actually acknowledged climate change was real and did not play around with it.

It would help if we had a government that did not go to an international conference while these fires were burning and argue for less action on the international stage, not more. And argued for accounting tricks rather than reducing emissions.

Climate change is real, we need to listen to the science and we need to respond to it.

He goes on:

There is also an overwhelming, clear view that the government, when it comes to its emissions policy – it does not have a credible climate change policy.

It doesn’t have an energy policy at all, and the government cannot continue to pretend that black is white, pretend that they are taking action at the same time as, essentially, people like Craig Kelly have been running the government’s agenda.

Scott Morrison rejected criticism of his government’s climate change policies on Friday. You can read of what he said here.

Updated

After that, Albanese was pressed on whether he supported the climate protests that took place around the country, and indeed around the world, last night.

Thousands of people marched in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and London to call for the Australian government to introduce a strong policy to mitigate the climate emergency.

Albanese says the protests were an expression of people’s frustration around the lack of action on climate change but that it was important that they did so without disrupting anyone else. This seems, to me, to be besides the point, but I’ll give you the full quote:

We are a democratic society, one way people can express their views is by doing it publicly.

That is an important thing. It’s also important, can I say, that while people do that, that people not be disrupted going about their every day lives as well, because that would alienate support.

But I think it is perfectly legitimate for people to express their views in that way, as they do in writing to parliamentarians, as they do through social media, as stated by ringing the local radio station and expressing their views.

Updated

‘It is not really tenable to do anything else’

Anthony Albanese spoke to reporters in Sydney a short time ago about his proposal to suspend the ordinary business of parliament on 4 February, the first sitting day of the year, for a motion of condolence for those killed in the summer bushfire crisis.

At least 26 people have died since October.

He says the motion of condolence should also acknowledge those who have lost everything – that’s well over 1,000 families, going just by the number of homes destroyed – and thank firefighters for their “extraordinary bravery”.

Albanese says he wrote to the prime minister to outline this proposal, and also assured him that Labor would facilitate the passage of any legislation required to facilitate reconstruction and recovery payments, so that can be done in the first week of parliament.

He says:

I have not as yet received a response from the prime minister, I would expect that that would be forthcoming. This was put forward as a constructive suggestion, so that preparations can be made.

He continued:

It just seems to me, and in the debate we have had in the shadow cabinet in Adelaide on Thursday, that it is not really tenable to do anything else on the first day back. Of course prior to parliament sitting there will be the usual church service that takes place in the morning as well and that will have a particular sombre note to it.

Updated

This is Calla Wahlquist, taking over from environment reporter Lisa Cox, who was keeping you informed this morning.

I’ll bring you the comments from opposition leader Anthony Albanese’s press conference shortly.

A quick note on megablazes

So, we now have two megablazes burning this fire season: the Gospers Mountain megablaze in the Blue Mountains and Wollemi national park, which is currently estimated to be 512,000ha in size; and the Dunns Road/Green Valley/Corryong fire, which joined overnight and is burning on both sides of the Murray River in the Snowy Mountains and upper Murray region.

That fire is more than 700,000ha in size. It’s a bit harder to get accurate figures, because it’s being managed by different state agencies.

The Gippsland fires, which merged over the extreme fire weather around 30 and 31 December with fires burning on the south coast of NSW, and cover an area that is even bigger than the huge Snowys/Upper Murray fire, have not been referred to as a megablaze.

It’s worth noting that the term has primarily been used by the NSW Rural Fire Service, and the bulk of that Gippsland fire is in Victoria.

Updated

AAP has this report out of Queensland today. The premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, has urged Donald Trump to reconsider US travel warnings placed on Australia:

The US state department last week put out a new warning for Americans to consider postponing their travel to Australia as disastrous bushfires ravage the country.

But the premier has passionately pleaded with the US leader to reconsider the warning, which could be damaging to the tourism industry at a delicate time.

“The last thing we need is for international tourists to think that the entire country of Australia is not safe to visit,” Ms Palaszczuk wrote on Friday.

“We have large parts of our beautiful country that are not affected and would love to welcome American tourists here.

“I urge you to change the travel advice for American tourists looking to visit Australia.”

Updated

More from that press conference: Victoria’s emergency services say they are trying to clarify what types of structures were destroyed overnight.

They believe one is a home and the other a shed but crews will be sent to the locations to confirm that.

The state of emergency will also end at midnight tonight, Lisa Neville, says, with 10 days of milder conditions now forecast.

Crews will try to use that time to contain some of the fires that are still burning, but the state is not out of danger yet.

Last night thousands turned out in Sydney and Melbourne calling for more action on climate change, with more than 10,000 gathering at Sydney’s Town Hall.

Protesters march with placards during a ‘Sack ScoMo!’ climate change rally in Sydney after rallying at Town Hall.
Protesters march with placards during a ‘Sack ScoMo!’ climate change rally in Sydney after rallying at Town Hall. Photograph: Steven Saphore/AAP
Rain did not deter protesters from marching in Melbourne.
Rain did not deter protesters from marching in Melbourne. Photograph: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

People around the world also turned out to protest climate change inaction and show support during Australia’s bushfire crisis.

Extinction Rebellion protesters outside the Australian embassy in London with a sign that says it's getting hot scott act now
Extinction Rebellion protesters outside the Australian embassy in London. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Barcroft Media
Demonstrators dressed as koalas in outside the Australian Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Demonstrators dressed as koalas outside the Australian embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Photograph: Reuters
“Por que tambien somos lo que hemos perdido” (Because we are also what we have lost): demonstrators protest Australia’s energy and climate policy outside the Australian embassy in Lima, Peru.
‘Porque tambien somos lo que hemos perdido’ (Because we are also what we have lost): demonstrators protest Australia’s energy and climate policy outside the Australian embassy in Lima, Peru. Photograph: Cris Bouroncle/AFP via Getty Images
“Tell the truth”: protesters lie on the ground during a demonstration over Australia’s bushfires crisis, outside the Australian embassy in Santiago, Chile.
‘Digan la verdad’ (Tell the truth): protesters lie on the ground during a demonstration over Australia’s bushfires crisis, outside the Australian embassy in Santiago, Chile. Photograph: Iván Alvarado/Reuters

Updated

Victoria’s emergency management commissioner, Andrew Crisp, says there are no total fire bans in the state today but fire danger remains very high in the north and north-east.

“It is a tale of two states at the moment, in terms of temperature and conditions. You get north of that divide and we have temperatures 30 plus, south of the divide is somewhat cooler and somewhat milder,” he says.

A fire near Mt Hotham remains at emergency warning level and there are 16 watch and act alerts from Mallacoota to Bairnsdale and up to the Corryong fire.

He says with the potential in some areas for more rain and even storms, trees could pose a danger. While opening up the Princes Highway and other roads will be a priority, the focus right now is on safety.

Crisp says another 140 firefighters and specialists will be brought into the state and will start arriving in about a week.

More from that press conference:

Victoria’s emergency services minister, Lisa Neville, says there have been mixed conditions in other parts of the state.

Rain has helped suppress fire conditions in East Gippsland today, which is “really good news” for some of those communities she says.

But she says “a lot of that rain was in that Bairnsdale area, and not all of it in the other fire areas”. She says Bairnsdale received 18mm of rain, while Mallacoota had only 2mm.

Neville also warns that thunderstorms could lead to flash flooding in parts of Victoria this week. Because of the scale of the bushfires, there is a risk of run-off.

“It is also dangerous for our firefighters and emergency service workers and in the past we have seen deaths as a result of that, those sort of conditions,” she says.

“So it is something we will be monitoring both for communities but particularly for our workers.”

Victoria’s emergency services minister, Lisa Neville, has been speaking.

She says Friday night’s “fast moving, scary grassfire” in Wodonga was indicative of the kinds of emergencies communities are facing.

That fire was contained to the loss of “two structures”.

Neville says there was very little rain in the north-east of the state yesterday and any that did occur would not have hit the fire ground at all.

She warns that strong southerlies in that area today are “generating some fire activity as we speak now”.

“So although we are milder than yesterday, certainly in the north-east we would be encouraging people to continue to heed the messages and look out for warnings because it is still active up there, you can see the smoke developing out of that fire activity,” she says.

The Sydney Opera House and Live Nation have also announced a comedy gala to raise funds for bushfire recovery.

The event will be on March 16 on the Opera House Steps and forecourt and will feature artists and comedians including Arj Barker, Carl Barron, Urzila Carlson, Joel Creasey, Kitty Flanagan, Becky Lucas, Tim Minchin, Julia Morris, Harry Shearer and more to be announced.

Tickets will go on sale on Wednesday 15 January at midday on the Sydney Opera House website. Proceeds from ticket sales will go towards the Australian Red Cross Disaster Relief and Recovery fund, the NSW Rural Fire Service, Wildlife Victoria and WIRES.

The sails of the Sydney Opera House will be lit up tonight to show support for bushfire-affected communities and firefighters around the country.

Sydney Opera House CEO Louise Herron AM said: “We are lighting the Opera House sails to show our collective support for everyone affected by these devastating fires and to express our deepest gratitude to the emergency services and volunteers for their incredible efforts and courage. As difficult circumstances continue, we want to send a message of hope and strength to the people of Australia.”

Liberal National MP Keith Pitt, the member for the Queensland electorate of Hinkler, has been speaking on the ABC.

He’s asked whether he thinks community sentiment about the government’s climate policies and how we deal with bushfire is changing.

Instead of responding to the question about climate policy, he says people across the country “need to be able to manage their own land”.

But he is asked again about whether the government’s response to climate change is that “business as usual” is enough.

“Well, the government’s response is that we are meeting our targets and we will meet the targets that have been set,” he says.

“We are doing exactly what we said we would and I think any individual which is out there that is saying that, you know, you could close a coal-fired power station and it wouldn’t have saved a single life or property, well, that is absolute nonsense.”

A reminder here that the government is not on track to meet its 2030 emissions reduction target under the Paris agreement of 26% to 28% and it intends to use carryover from the Kyoto period to achieve this. Australia is the only country in the world planning to do this.

The target is also much lower than was recommended by the Climate Change Authority to be consistent with the global goal of limiting warming to 2C or less.

Updated

The Blue Mountains this morning, where there is a mix of heavy smoke and fog:

If you are after some longer reading on the bushfire crisis, there is plenty in Guardian Australia today.

James Bradley has written this piece about the horror day in NSW on New Year’s eve and how it could come to be seen as the “day everything changed” for climate politics in Australia.

We have another fact check - one of several this season - this time on claims that the “locking up” of national parks has contributed to the increased risk this fire season.

And in case you missed it yesterday, an employee at News Corp has written an all-staff email accusing the company of “misinformation” and diverting attention away from the climate crisis during the bushfire emergency.

And this is the new watch and act alert for a fire near Port Stephens.

One property owner injured, weather conditions easing

Here is a summary of what the NSW RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons and the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian had to say about the impact of those conditions on Friday and what is expected in the days ahead:

  • There have been two reports of injuries on Friday. Members of a volunteer firefighting crew from the Central Coast working in the Shannon’s Flat area were overrun by fire. There were some initial reports of burns and shortness of breath for three crew members. They were treated by ambulance and released.
  • In the south of the state, a man has suffered serious burns defending his property. He was treated on scene and flown out of the area on a water bombing helicopter and will have surgery today at Concord Hospital.
  • 147 fires are still burning in NSW and one new fire has started today near Port Stephens.
  • Fitzsimmons says initial reports suggest no homes were lost overnight but there has been damage to other structures such as sheds.
  • Crews want to use forecast milder conditions over the next to week to contain as much as they can before a return to warmer weather.

The challenge is the enormous geographic spread of the fires. Fitzsimmons said advice from the Bureau of Meteorology was that while there was currently some rainfall through the state, much of it was showers that are “evaporating before they hit the ground”.

“Hopefully, we will not see more thunderstorms and more dry thunderstorms and lightning strikes causing new fires,” he says.

Updated

More from that press conference:

The NSW RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons says early reports today suggest no homes were destroyed overnight “but we have got reports of some outbuildings and some sheds that were damaged or consumed by the fire”.

“So, as the premier said, no lives lost which is the priority,” he says.

He adds that they are expecting “a run of better weather over the next week”:

“It would appear that we have got at least a week, it will probably be the best seven days we have had without a rise of very dangerous fire ratings coming towards us over the next seven days.”

“So, some reprieve. An opportunity for firefighters and affected communities to consolidate and allow us to try and get the upper hand on the fires.”

Updated

The NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is speaking.

She says a person has been injured overnight while defending their property and was taken to Concord Hospital.

She says while “we never want to be complacent and we shouldn’t be under the current conditions” they are relieved that a reprieve in weather conditions is expected over the next week.

The NSW RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons confirms that earlier figure that there are still 147 fires burning across the state.

But he adds that a new fire has started this morning in the Port Stephens region, to the east of Anna Bay.

“That’s one that just popped up and has been elevated to watch and act just due to its proximity to people’s homes,” he says.

We are expecting an update within the next hour from the NSW RFS and the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

In the meantime, the RFS has published its latest data on properties damaged and destroyed this season, up until January 10. It says these figures will increase.

Good morning and welcome to today’s coverage of the ongoing bushfire crisis.

Firefighters in NSW and Victoria faced a difficult night after a southerly change brought gusty winds through both states.

In NSW, more than 3,500 firefighters were deployed and wind gusts of up to 90km/h across some firegrounds created dangerous conditions. We will hear more about the impact of this later today.

Three fires – the Dunns Road, the Green Valley Talmalmo, and the East Ournie Creek fire – have merged to create a new “megablaze” that is burning across the NSW and Victorian borders.

There is some better news, however, with, conditions having eased on Saturday morning and cooler conditions expected today.

Most of NSW has a fire danger rating of high today. The southern slopes region has very high fire danger today.

In NSW, no fires are currently at emergency warning level and one fire is at watch and act level.

The RFS said that, at 6am, there were still 147 bush and grass fires burning across NSW, 65 of which are yet to be contained.

In Victoria, a fire near Wodonga forced evacuations overnight.

There is one emergency warning in place in Victoria near Mt Hotham.

Updated

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