Victoria has been battered by some of the most destructive bushfires in its history, with blazes tearing through 400,000 hectares across the state and claiming the life of a cattle farmer, Maxwell Hobson. Almost 900 buildings have been destroyed, including more than 250 homes, and more than 15,000 livestock have been killed, along with countless wildlife.
Both authorities and firefighters on the ground have reported the fires were unlike anything seen before in their speed, scale and destruction. They also came much earlier than the traditional bushfire season, which typically peaks in February.
“We were exceeding, in some parts of the state, the threshold that we saw on Black Saturday,” the chief officer of the Country Fire Authority, Jason Heffernan, said on Thursday.
“Knowing what we were up against, I am surprised that we haven’t seen more devastation in communities.”
map showing the extent of the fires in victoria
The fires followed a year of exceptionally dry conditions, with many areas receiving below-average rainfall. Data from the Bureau of Meteorology shows much of southern Australia, and most of Victoria, had rainfall “below average”, with some areas even drier.
Map showing deviation from rainfall averages
Then rain in November triggered what Heffernan described as “prolific grass growth”, which, combined with prolonged heat, dried out, leaving areas primed to burn.
6 January
On 6 January, Victoria’s commissioner of emergency management, Tim Weibusch, held a press conference to warn a severe heatwave would pass through south-east Australia.
“We are likely to see [an] extreme and severe intensity heatwave over the next several days, conditions which we have not seen in Victoria since 2019,” he told reporters.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s Michael Efron said storms would then begin to pass through the state by Thursday, bringing little rain but “gusty and erratic winds”.
“We may also see some fires starting across the landscape Thursday into Friday,” he said, warning temperatures would reach up to 45C or 46C on 9 January.
7 January
On 7 January, Melbourne reached 41.1C, with several bush and grass fires beginning across the state. The biggest was a blaze at Mt Lawson state park, on the NSW border in Victoria’s north-east, which has since become known as the Walwa fire. Residents in the nearby towns of Bungil, Granya and Thologolong were urged to leave immediately.
The chief fire officer of Forest Fire Management Victoria, Chris Hardman, told reporters that afternoon the fire had burned through 1,000 hectares of land, and more than 300 firefighters, 12 aircraft and 30 bulldozers were working to control the blaze. He warned it was only likely to get worse.
Walwa River Road bushfire. Photograph: DEECA Hume region Facebook page
“With the conditions that we have ahead of us, these fires will not be able to be suppressed,” Hardman said.
“This is Mother Nature saying that I’m going to do something that is beyond people’s capacity to stop those fires from spreading in the landscape, and they can be devastating, and they can cause terrible outcomes for communities.”
A short time after the press conference ended, the first warnings were issued for a fire in Longwood, in central Victoria, with residents told about 3.30pm to take shelter, then by about 6.15pm to leave immediately.
8 January
On 8 January authorities declared a catastrophic fire danger for the next day, which Jason Heffernan described as “as bad as it gets”. It was the first time the catastrophic danger rating has been used since 2019, ahead of the Black Summer bushfires. A total fire ban was also announced and national parks were closed to visitors.
Two dozen townships across Victoria were urged to leave immediately due to the Longwood and Walwa blazes, both burning out of control.
Longwood bushfire.
Photograph: Wandong Fire Brigade/Reuters
9 January
On 9 January, strong winds and high temperatures supercharged the existing bushfires, as the following graphic shows.
The Longwood fire
Authorities warned Victorians the Longwood blaze was incredibly dynamic, with the possibility fire could spread in multiple directions. And it did.
The blaze travelled south-easterly, towards towns such as Merton, Yarck, Molesworth and Alexandra. The town of Ruffy was decimated, with the Ruffy captain of the Country Fire Authority, George Noye, saying “the main street looks like a bomb’s gone off”, while popular holiday spots such as Eildon were among dozens of towns ordered to evacuate.
This graphic shows the spread and speed of the fire based on hotspots detected via satellite. The detection of these hotspots is dependent on when Nasa satellites are able to pass over the region, and can be blocked by clouds and smoke, so even this doesn’t accurately capture the sheer speed of the fire front movement on the worst days.
animation of Longwood fire
By Thursday 15 January, the blaze had burned through 137,000ha of central Victoria, destroying 173 homes and damaging 12, with significant impacts to agriculture and infrastructure.
The following satellite images show the region before the fires, then at the peak on 9 January, and the extent of burned areas by 11 January.
satellite view of Longwood fire
It was the Longwood blaze that claimed the life of Hobson, a cattle farmer who operated Aintree Farm Herefords in Terip Terip. His remains were found by police on Sunday, about 100m from a vehicle off Yarck Road in Gobur, north of Alexandra.
The Harcourt fire
A fire ignited in Ravenswood, north of the apple-growing region of Harcourt, on Friday afternoon. By the evening, it had torn through the township and jumped the Calder Freeway, causing significant damage to the Bendigo rail line.
harcourt/ravenswood fire hotspot animation
The captain of the Harcourt Valley CFA, Andrew Wilson, said the fire was one of the most intense he’d ever fought in more than four decades. It “ran harder” than the one he battled on Black Saturday in 2009, and was “up there” with the Black Summer fires in New South Wales which he fought with the Rural Fire Service.
“Just the erraticness of it,” he says.
A man in his 60s was found dead in a vehicle in Harcourt on Friday but police said his death was not directly linked to the fire and was a suspected medical episode.
Photograph: Jesse Thompson/Getty ImagesA burnt house in Harcourt lies in ruins on 12 January. Photograph: Jesse Thompson/Getty Images
At least 54 homes were lost in Ravenswood and Harcourt, as well as three businesses including the Harcourt Cooperative Cool Store facility, where more than 90 local businesses stored wine, beer, apples and other produce.
The Walwa fire
The Walwa fire, on the NSW border, was among the first to begin on 7 January, starting in the Mt Lawson state park. It became so fierce that by the afternoon of 8 January, it generated its own weather, including a substantial pyrocumulonimbus cloud with lightning and thunder.
animation of walwa fire
By 15 January, it had spread across more than 102,00 hectares, destroyed nine structures and at least 584ha of farmland. About 10,000ha of pine plantation, which supplied timber mills in Victoria and NSW, was also destroyed.
Fire season not over
Several other grassfires and bushfires broke out across Victoria, particularly as the cool change spread through the state in the afternoon and evening of 9 January.
A grassfire tore through parts of Streatham, Carranballac and Skipton, west of Ballarat, claiming 59 structures including 18 homes. Natimuk, about 25km west of the regional city of Horsham, lost at least 17 homes, 18 outbuildings and 40 power poles when the Grass Flat blaze tore through the township – about 25km west of the regional city of Horsham – that same day.
As of Thursday 15 January, nine blazes continued to burn across the state, including Longwood and Walwa, though there were no emergency warnings in place.
Satellite image of burnt out grasslands in Natimuk on 13 January. Photograph: Nearmap
Authorities have been using the milder conditions to conduct controlled burns to bring the fires under control before warmer weather returns in late January.
“Please don’t think that this event is it,” Heffernan warned Victorians on Wednesday 14 January, stressing peak fire danger was in February.
“There is every chance that we can see weather patterns come in the next couple of weeks – it could see a return of very hot conditions, very strong, northerly winds and again [could] threaten more communities across Victoria.”
