“Leave early and live”.<br /><br />That is the stark message from Denis Napthine, the premier of Victoria state, for those whose homes are at risk from the bushfires raging in southern Australia.<br /><br />Emergency services are battling the flames but the scale of the task they face can be overwhelming.<br /><br />Tackling an out-of-control blaze in Eden Valley, 80<br />kilometres east of Adelaide, Brigade Captain John Richardson of South Australia’s fire service fought back tears.<br /><br />“I’m upset because it started in our territory,” he said. <br />“We’re just hopeless. We just don’t know how to fight it.”<br /><br />Extreme heat and high winds have fanned dozens of fires in some of the worst conditions since Australia’s Black Saturday fires that killed 173 people in 2009.<br /><br />The states of Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales have been hardest hit.<br /><br />While many people have fled, others have stayed behind, hoping their property would be spared.<br /><br />“We thought it was going to miss us,” said Max Green, in the town of Dadswell Bridge, 250 kilometres northwest of Melbourne.<br /><br />“It went past us, and then, out of the blue, it turned around and came back over the top.”<br /><br />Helped by fire crews, Green and his son, Luke, were able to save most of their property and only their fence fell victim to the fire.<br /><br />The heatwave in Australia’s south and southeast has seen temperatures hit over 40 degrees Celsius.<br /><br />So far, only one life has been lost to these bushfires but as people seek shelter, the risk is likely to rise with climate experts warning of longer, hotter spells to come.
