Australian bushfires still rage

SOARING temperatures and high winds fuelled bushfires raging across Australia last night, razing at least six homes in rural Victoria and forcing the evacuation of villages in the Snowy Mountains near the capital, Canberra.

But with more than 4,000 firefighters working to control the blazes, officials were not expecting a repeat of last weekend when fires killed four people and destroyed 530 Canberra homes. Late yesterday evening, 16 houses in the Victorian village of Cobungra caught fire, though only six were consumed by the flames. Firefighters were hoping for a southwesterly wind that would carry cooling breezes in from the Pacific Ocean.

Canberra residents appeared to have escaped the worst of the blazes yesterday but fire crews in Victoria state were still confronting 122 fires in different stages of strength. Six of the blazes were considered to be spreading and not yet contained.

Bushfires were starting to run out of control in the Snowy Mountains, southwest of Canberra, where one of Australia’s main mountain resorts, Thredbo, was largely evacuated last week. Emergency crews ordered the evacuation of several hundred people still in the Thredbo valley and nearby villages.