Doesn’t @Shelton10 have some digs in the Otways? Good luck and stay safe if that’s right…
Very high risk tomorrow. Hot, light breeze pushing the fire south before a SW wind change in the afternoon. Similar conditionsto Black Saturday.
Yes I do and there’s an immediate evacuation warning. I’m in France right now so I guess you could say I’ve obeyed that. In fact I’m not too worried. The area around Beech Forest is now mostly open grazing land, and there are no fires within about 15 km. I know things can change, but there’s not much I can do about it so I’m waiting and seeing.
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Big wind swing between 2pm and 4pm tomorrow.
Which has the potential to do something like this, which is why the evacuation zones exist.
There’s some massive environmental values in that area. I hiked into the old growth tall forest recently and it was truly astounding. That will be wiped out by a fire.
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Some parts of the otways have about 6ft+ deep of dead dry foliage that’s been building up for years
There’ll be no stopping it once it tears through
It’s happened before. Beech Forest used to be quite a substantial town, with a railway line, school, shops, etc., but it was completely destroyed by a fire in about 1930. Now there’s one place that sells coffee and that’s it.
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Went hiking through that to see the giant trees. The amount of fuel on the ground was brutally difficult to move through. I think I went about 250m in an hour.
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Family had property in Johanna once upon a time, looking likely there wont be much of that left.
Hope it goes well for you.
Bushfire.io depiction of winds says it is going SW on a NE wind for now. BOM says that changes to a light-mod NW (more like your arrows) by 2 and then it goes SW light-mod by 5. Hopefully the NW wind period is as short as possible … and hopefully this thing doesn’t make its own hurricane
Someone said it’s similar to Black Saturday. To me wind strength is the big difference. Almost no wind in Eltham. On the other hand, there are lots of large going fires already. Hopefully those flooding rains have left a bit of moisture in the fuel, in the Otways…
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Please not again. Stay safe Wye River.
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There’s no wind in Geelong and it’s about 5 degrees less than forecast at this time
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Don’t know exactly how ‘live’ the data are, but still showing a Sw fire path. Lots of ifs, but if the wind stays as predicted and if it doesn’t make its own wind and if there’s enough residual moisture to minimise spotting (unlike Black Sat),
Then maybe the u turn is narrow and the fire front after the change is largely blowing back on itself. Also any sea breeze might later strengthen the SW, but possibly could offset the N component sooner than predicted. I mean ocean is probs ly 18 c and the land will be 40. C. I’ve seen it cancel light northerlies before.
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New fire west of the Grampians.
Noooooffs.
Fark. Bushfire.io says 17 vehicles and shows 3 planes (not sure spotters or fighting) on it and 20 ha I think. Going east on a W wind towards the hills W of the Gramps…. Hope they stop it before it gets in the forest…
If the obs are correct the Otways fire did not go far south and wind is already SW. Not as bad as could have been.
App saying over 40 in Eltham but feels high 30s. Something about lack of hair dryer blast furnace winds. I guess. I mean breezes drop apparent temp but a dusty hot hurricane lets you know it’s hot.
Warning and evacuate for parts of SA
Grass fire at Clarkefield, 30 trucks and 3 helicopters on it