Residents flee as fresh blazes hit Melbourne

WITH terrifying memories of Australia’s deadliest wildfires still fresh, residents chose to flee rather than protect their homes yesterday when new blazes broke containment lines and threatened the fringes of the country’s second-largest city.

Many victims of the February 7 disaster that officials call “Black Saturday” died in their cars or in the open because police said they tried to escape too late. Since then, officials have urged residents to choose quickly: leave early when a blaze is near, or stay and fight.

One house was destroyed in the Melbourne suburb of Belgrave South before the fire threat eased later, but the panic showed how jittery Australians remained 16 days after the disaster killed at least 209 people. “I’m no hero — take the house,” one woman told the Australian Broadcasting Corp television as she prepared to leave Warburton, east of Melbourne.

In Yarra Junction, Dawn Brown and her husband left their home with some family heirlooms. “I would have liked to stay a bit longer but Ray said, ‘no, we’re going’ so we’re going now,” she told ABC.

Relief centres in nearby towns filled with people who had loaded their cars and were set to wait out the latest emergency.

At least two new fires broke out in southern Victoria state, where temperatures soared into the mid-80s (low 30s Celsius) and strong, gusty winds blew the fires first one way, then another.

Another fire that had been burning for more than a week flared and sent embers raining on Melbourne. Two firefighters who fought the blaze in Belgrave South suffered minor injuries, said Kevin Monk, a state environment department spokesman.

The fire burned almost 5,000 acres, the country fire authority said.

The fire authority downgraded the threat from the blazes last night, and said threats from fires burning near Daylesford, north-west of Melbourne, and Warburton had also eased as temperatures cooled and the wind dropped.

The confirmed death toll from the earlier fires stood at 209 and was expected to rise as more remains were identified from the ruins.

Yesterday Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Victoria Premier John Brumby said the governments would pay clean-up costs of up to $25,000 (€12,640) for each person affected by the fires.