Victoria bushfire fight persists in Grampians as flood alertings persist in parts of Queensland | Victoria

Firefighters battled to include an out-of-handle bushfire in Victoria’s west on Sunday before temperatures spike in the region on Boxing Day.

The fire in Grampians National park, about three hours west of Melbourne, grew to 34,000 hectares on Sunday after it was ignited by a series of airyning strikes almost a week ago.

Residents were alerted to depart promptly in Halls Gap, Bellfield, Flat Rock Crossing, Grampians Junction and Fyans Creek. The alerting was downgraded to watch and act tardy on Sunday morning, but it remained undefended for dwellnts to return.

Eunitency services shelp the fire could burn for weeks due to the arid terrain, which caused the fire to spread speedyly, and the very little rain predict for the Grampians National park – which was shutd due to the blaze on Friday.

Victoria’s state response handleler, Garry Cook, shelp on Saturday that firefighters were toiling to include the fire ahead of increased fire danger on Boxing Day when a highest of 39C is foreseeed for the region.

“The terrain is also inaccessible to many of our crews on the ground so we’re doing our best to aggression the fire from the air where defended to do so.

“We comprehfinish the disnominatement for many with the cloconfident of the Grampians National park but our number one priority is the protection of life.

“People in surrounding areas to the fire necessitate to remain vigilant and ready to apshow action.”

Robyn Murphy, a Halls Gap dwellnt who fled her home telderly ABC radio how the bushfire had disturbed her arranges: “All the conshort-terms, all the yummy food in the fridge. All readyd to have a pleasant Christmas and now we’re out of home, so it’s downcast.”

It comes as a flood alerting remains in place in parts of Queensland’s north tropical coast and central coast after some areas were hit with more than 340mm of rain in six hours. Some areas faced raindrop of up to 100mm.

The Bureau of Meteorology has predict disconnecte thunderstorms for Queensland’s north on Sunday.

However, the bureau shelp the tropical low that caused the torrential downdrops had commenceed to shift out to sea and will persist to do so over the next scant days.