Residents of an Australian region ravaged by bushfires were given two hours to return home to collect their belongings before Christmas on Tuesday, as emergency crews tried to contain the blaze.
Communities around the Grampians Islands, in Victoria, have been evacuated amid warnings from authorities that conditions there in the coming days could be the worst since Australia's most severe fire season on record, or the so-called “Black Summer” of 2019-2020.
Forest fires have already burned more than 41,000 hectares (101,000 acres) of land in the past week, but there have been no deaths or property losses.
Forecasts of extreme heat on Boxing Day have also triggered a series of fire warnings across the country.
Across Victoria, temperatures are expected to reach 40 C (104 F) and be accompanied by strong dry winds, while parts of South Australia and New South Wales may also experience bushfire conditions from Thursday to Friday.
“We expect to see a high fire risk across almost the entire state,” Victoria State Control Center spokesman Luke Hegarty said.
He added: “This is the greatest fire danger the state has seen – across all the divisions of the state that we're talking about – since the Black Summer. It's important for people to understand that Thursday is a day with great potential.”
Four interstate firefighting forces and two incident management teams – made up of more than 100 personnel – will land in Victoria in the coming days to provide relief to emergency crews who have been working around the clock to battle existing fires.
The decision to give families around the Grampians temporary access to their homes “for Christmas supplies… gifts and the like” was made on Tuesday morning by the State Fire Authority (CFA)'s chief officer, Jason Heffernan.
“(This is) to ensure that if Halls Gap residents are moved out for Christmas, they will at least get what they need,” he told Seven's Sunrise programme.
Mary Ann Brown, who lives on the southern edge of Grampians National Park, told the ABC her community was on edge as the holidays approached.
“We're not out of the woods until we get a really good raindrop, and it may not come before March or April, so it's going to be a long summer,” he added.
Parts of Australia were on high alert for the danger of bushfires this summer, after several quieter seasons compared to the 2019-2020 fires. Associated with hundreds of deaths It invaded 24 million hectares of land.
The country has suffered from one disaster to another in recent years, experiencing record floods and extreme heat, as it feels the effects of climate change.
