January 28, 2025 – Firefighters are battling a massive bushfire in rural southeastern Australia, with the blaze having already burned through 65,000 hectares, nearly the size of Singapore. The fire is now threatening the small farming town of Dimboola, about 330 kilometers northwest of Melbourne.
Chief fire officer Jason Heffernan told national broadcaster ABC that the fire, which spread through 40 kilometers of national park, is being fueled by hot winds. “We’re still continuing to work that fire line there. Firefighters are really trying to get the upper hand where they can,” Heffernan said. “But certainly we’re not out of the woods yet by any stretch of imagination.”
Almost 100 people have registered at an evacuation center outside Dimboola, which has a population of around 1,600 people. The state emergency authority has warned residents that it is now too dangerous to leave and advised them to take shelter indoors and monitor conditions.
A band of lightning on January 27 ignited several smaller bushfires in the Grampians National Park, and authorities anticipate more fires to be discovered. Researchers have noted a marked increase in extreme fire weather across Australia since the 1950s, with hotter temperatures contributing to more severe natural disasters.
The unprecedented “Black Summer” bushfires of 2019 to 2020 killed millions of animals, razed vast tracts of native forest, and blanketed major cities in thick smoke.