Infernos tear through Victoria, Australia, igniting a state of emergency with 30 bushfires raging Friday. Scorching 40°C-plus heat, violent gusts drive mass evacuations of thousands, while anguish grips communities over three missing persons – their home gutted by fire.
From a somber press conference, Deputy Commissioner Bob Hill of Victoria Police disclosed the trio’s fate: two adults, one child in central Victoria, heeding Country Fire Authority’s desperate Thursday plea to escape encroaching blazes. Crews later found ruins; no survivors located.
Ruffy sees homes erased, 105 km northeast of Melbourne, spurring exodus from adjacent and remote northeastern locales. Four regions declared utmost hazard – a dire echo of 2019, unprecedented in scope this millennium.
State Premier Jacinta Allan issued a stark advisory: Friday portends Victoria’s fiercest fire onslaught in years. ‘Statewide conflagration under lethal conditions,’ she stressed. Evacuate instantly – lingering courts death.
Country Fire Authority’s Jason Heffernan forecast northern mercury at 46°C, mid-day lightning in central belts risking blaze proliferation. Unpredictable winds thwart suppression, accelerating spread.
Fire warriors push limits with aerial assaults and backburns, backed by interstate reinforcements. The crisis spotlights escalating wildfire risks, spurring government pledges for bolstered defenses. As searches intensify for the vanished, Victoria hunkers down, united in defiance against the flames.