Vic: Firefighters dig in as heat, wind loom late in the week
25 Feb 2009 1:35 AM
Firefighters are battling to contain seven bushfires still out of control in Victoria ahead of predicted heat and strong winds towards the end of the week.
Fire crews expect to contain the fire burning south of the central Victorian town of Daylesford by dawn.
And they're strengthening control lines around the fire already contained at Upwey in the Dandenongs .. on Melbourne's eastern fringe.
But temperatures up into the 30s by tomorrow .. and extreme heat and a strong late southwesterly change on Friday .. will again test firefighters weary after more than two weeks of toil in the face of Australia's worst bushfire disaster.
150 more firefighters from New South Wales .. Western Australia and New Zealand will bolster the thousands already on the ground .. as horror conditions return.
The Department of Sustainability and Environment says bulldozers are working through the night to bolster containment lines around the Upwey fire .. with more backburning to begin later today .. while up to 400 firefighters work to black out the edges of the Daylesford fire.
And major work's continuing overnight in the Upper Yarra Valley to protect towns and water catchments ahead of the hot weather.
Backburning's also continueing at Big River and Jamieson .. near Lake Eildon.
Although seven fires remain out of control .. none is posing any threat to private property.
The two sectors of the East Kilmore-Murrindindi fires have together burned out more than 236 thousand hectares.
The Bunyip Ridge fire in west Gippsland has blackened 26 thousand hectares and a blaze sparked on Monday at Won Wron .. near Yarram, has burned 13 hundred hectares.
A 22 thousand hectare fire in inaccessible country in the Wilsons Promontory National Park will burn uncontrolled.
The Tidal River settlement inside the park is safe.
