THE CFA has issued an unusually early severe fire danger in Ballarat and surrounds, with hot weather, high winds and dry air leading to volatile conditions.
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Operations Officer Western District 15 Anthony Pearce said firefighters were “holding our breath” and preparing for fires.
“We’re always ready if something happens, but we’re well and truly ahead of where we usually are. It’s very unusual to have high fire danger ratings this early in the season,” he said.
“We don’t usually start to see high fire dangers until around December. The first week of October is definitely a concern for emergency service agencies and we’ll be doing our best to ensure these fires don’t start and grow under the conditions.”
With weather soaring towards 30 degrees, a number of small blazes have already started across the district.
Fires today have included a 100sq/m fire at Slaty Creek Road, Creswick, a tree fire at Smythes Creek, Haddon, a deliberately-lit house fire at Sebastopol, a small bushfire at Lake Burrumbeet, a small fire at Simpson Street and a small bushfire at Gordon, among other incidents.
Mr Pearce said the CFA and DEWLP were at “high-preparedness level”.
The CFA has issued a total fire ban has been issued until midnight tonight.
“The concern we’ve got is as people have been doing their preparations for the fire season and doing burnoffs around their properties, many of those burnoffs have the potential to get out of control,” Mr Pearce said.
“We’re currently having brigades responding quite regularly to private burnoffs. Some of them are starting to put up smoke and some of them may get out of control.
“People need to be aware that fire danger is high.”
Other small blazes over the past few days have included grass, scrub and structural fires at Skipton, Wimmera Highway, Daylesford Trentham Road, Musk, Brown Hill and Bakery Hill.
