Country Fire Authority chief officer Jason Heffernan issued a clear message to residents in the affected areas, saying, “If you don’t have a plan, the best plan for Friday is just leave early.”
Emergency Management Commissioner Tim Wiebusch said services were preparing for all eventualities over the next four days.
“Now we’re asking Victorians to play their part as well,” he said, urging residents to download the VicEmergency app, swim between the flags and prepare for potential power outages.
CFA volunteers and members of the United Firefighters Union gathered on the steps of state parliament on Tuesday morning, claiming Victoria lacked the resources to adequately battle catastrophic fires. In a letter to Premier Jacinta Allan, they also criticised declining rates of fuel reduction burns.
But Dimopoulos dismissed the claims as fearmongering, saying Victoria’s fleet was fully operational.
“We are fully prepared for bushfire season across all our agencies,” he said.
The minister also said fire teams had consulted Los Angeles firefighting services following their devastating urban-fringe fires last year, and are aware of the threat to fringe suburbs of Melbourne.
The United Firefighters Union has been locked in an industrial relations battle with the state government for years, frequently accusing it of safety and resourcing issues.
Nationals leader Danny O’Brien said the Allan government’s management of firefighting services had been inadequate and claimed the intensity of fuel reduction burns had diminished.
Data obtained by the opposition from 2024 parliamentary estimates committee hearings showed 230 CFA appliances were older than 30 years. O’Brien requested updated figures at November’s estimates hearings but was not provided with them.
The latest government data shows the state undertook planned burning and other bushfire risk-reduction activities across 109,938 hectares in 2024-25. This was a reduction from the 139,000 hectares treated the previous year, but did mark an increase on figures from 2021-22 and 2022-23.
Swimmers in Lorne evacuated the water on Tuesday after a shark was spotted near the pier.Credit: Justin McManus
Dry conditions slowed burning activities, especially in parts of the state’s west. However, the department met its target of keeping fuel-driven bushfire risk below 70 per cent.
Deputy Chief Health Officer Evelyn Wong warned that the health impacts of extreme heat were cumulative, saying consecutive hot days and warm nights made it hard for the body to cool down.
Meanwhile, a six-year study by Monash researchers and published in the Environmental Research journal has found that bushfires across Victoria significantly increase attendance at emergency departments, costing the state’s health budget an extra $145 million.
The study looked at the levels of bushfire-sourced fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and emergency department visits in Victoria from January 1, 2014, to December 31, 2019, a period which included part of the Black Summer bushfires of 2019 to 2020.
Ross Salathiel of Ambulance Victoria added to the health advice by urging people never to leave children in cars.
“Even on a mild day, the temperature inside a parked car can rise by 20 to 30 degrees in just a matter of minutes,” he said. “For children, that is incredibly dangerous; their body temperature rises much faster than adults, and they can’t regulate it.”
Victoria Police is reactivating its Operation Summersafe, which involves officers patrolling beaches from Port Melbourne to Portsea, as well as Altona, Williamstown and Geelong, to detect and deter crime. There have been violent incidents at St Kilda and Mordialloc on hot days so far this summer.
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Police said on Tuesday that in the 10 days that Operation Summersafe had been activated so far this summer, officers had arrested 14 people for offences including affray, disorderly conduct and car theft.
The warnings came after Lorne beach was evacuated when a great white shark was sighted near the pier.
Age photographer Justin McManus had stopped to take pictures after returning from an unrelated assignment when the shark siren went off.
“People started fleeing the water. I was sort halfway down towards the pier shooting back across the bay, and a person walking back from the pier said a 2½-metre white pointer was spotted swimming under the pier,” he said.
“Most people evacuated the water within a couple of minutes. There were surf life-saving crews on inflatables monitoring this older person to make sure they were safe.”
Video posted to social media shows the rescue helicopter circling the area.
“There were thousands of people lined on the beach just looking out at the water seeing if they could spot a fin,” McManus said.
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