Australian villagers ordered to flee fires

Officials warned residents to evacuate nine alpine villages today as bush fires spread across huge swathes of southeast Australia.

Dozens of other towns were on high alert as soaring temperatures and harsh winds whipped the three-week-old blazes into raging infernos.

On the southwest outskirts of Sydney, the extreme conditions sparked a fire that gutted three homes and closed the main southern road into Australia’s biggest city for two hours.

But firefighters battling the blaze said they were confident they could bring it under control.

Dozens of larger fires burned across an area stretching 185 miles from the nation’s capital Canberra to the Gippsland region in Victoria state.

Forests, farms and grasslands parched by one of the worst droughts in a century fuelled the fires, which were fanned by winds of up to 50mph amid temperatures of more than 40 C (104 F).

Ignited three weeks ago by lightning storms, the fires have razed hundreds of thousands of acres of forests and grasslands.

New South Wales fire chief Phil Koperberg warned residents in nine villages 125 miles south of Canberra to evacuate to the nearby ski resort town of Jindabyne as gale-force winds spread burning embers ahead of a massive fire front.

“If you can envisage virtually tens of thousands of firebrands dropping upon the area around there and creating not one or two but literally hundreds of spot fires, that is the picture down there at the moment,” he said.

Burning through mountain forests, the fire front was approaching Jindabyne on three sides, but Koperberg said he was confident hundreds of firefighters and fire breaks prepared over the past four days could protect the town.

To the south in Victoria, fire spread into the village of Omeo on hot winds gusting up to 60mph, razing four homes, damaging the police stations and killing more than 3,600 livestock.

One bulldozer driver who had been building firebreaks was taken to hospital after his vehicle was overrun by flames.

“It was hot, windy, smoky and very scary,” said Omeo resident Judy Smith, adding that the blaze came within 50 yards of her home. “It has been like a war zone.”

West of Omeo at the ski resort of Mt Hotham, firefighters and two helicopter water tankers gained control of a blaze after a late afternoon weather change calmed winds, cooled temperatures and brought patchy rain – the first in weeks.

The 1.5 miles of firefront had burned up to fire breaks around the resort by the time conditions eased.

Authorities urged residents in nearby Mitta Mitta to prepare to fight fires around their homes. Fire authority spokesman John Tindall said the severity of flames made a “direct attack on the fire impossible”.

Canberra also faced extreme danger, with fires burning to its north and west. To the west, residents of Wee Jasper were urged to evacuate as firefighters lost control of a blaze near the town.

Meanwhile, insurers said the bill from a savage firestorm that destroyed 530 homes and killed four people in Canberra on January 18 will reach more than £90 million.

The Insurance Disaster Response Organisation described it as Australia’s “second-worst bush fire disaster behind Victoria’s 1983 Ash Wednesday,” when 75 people died and 2,500 homes were destroyed.

Also in Canberra, police today said they have charged a 16-year-old boy with lighting bush fires. The boy is the third person to be charged with arson in the city since the January 18 blazes.