Halls Gap evacuated as authorities warn Grampians fire will burn for weeks

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“The dryness in the landscape is causing it to run faster than what we’d expect and the models suggest,” he said.

Rudolph said the northernmost spot-fire was “being bombed basically off the face of the earth” on Saturday morning.

“So we’re really confident that’s not going to spread.”

The nearby localities of Jimmy Creek, Mirranatwa, Bornes Hill, Grampians, Victoria Valley, Barton, Jallukar and Londonderry remained under a ‘watch and act’ warning on Saturday.

While the fire danger rating in western Victoria was reduced to “high” on Saturday, temperatures are forecast to high the mid-30s on Christmas Day and almost 40 degrees on Boxing Day.

Halls Gap is expected to reach 36 degrees on December 26, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

State Response Controller Garry Cook said with little respite from the extreme weather conditions in coming days, firefighters would work on reinforcing containment lines.

“We are concerned about the weather over the Christmas period which will likely see further spread of the Grampians fire,” he said in a statement.

“The fire is expected to burn for several weeks due to the dry and rugged bushland it’s in. The terrain is also inaccessible to many of our crews on the ground so we’re doing our best to attack the fire from the air where safe to do so.”

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A relief centre has been set up at the Alexandra Oval community centre in Ararat.

The lack of rainfall across the Grampians over the past 24 months meant this fire – sparked by a lightning strike in inaccessible bushland near Yarram Gap Road on Tuesday – would burn for weeks, Gunning said.

“And when you’ve got a really big fire in the landscape, it likes to do its own thing, and bulge in places,” he said. “It can actually do its own thing, with some of the winds that the fire itself creates.”

Gunning warned locals “spike weather days” could cause the fire to escape dense bushland and directly threaten towns surrounding the Grampians via fast-moving grass fires. Planned burns to create fire breaks had helped on Friday, but if a catastrophic fire danger rating day arose in the next month, Gunning said those defences could be overwhelmed.

He reminded locals of the Mount Lubra bushfire in 2006, which burnt through about 184,000 hectares and killed Malcolm Wilson, 36, and his 12-year-old son Zeke when their car was engulfed by flames at Moyston.

“I’m not comparing the two, but we did see a fire on a really bad day run about 22 kilometres in 16 minutes,” Gunning said. “So that gives you an idea, on those bad days, of what you’ve got to be prepared for.”

In February, fire raced down from the Grampians and consumed 44 homes in Pomonal, equating to about one-third of buildings in the tiny town being destroyed.

On Saturday, Rudolph said the remaining “fire scar” was now helping protect the town from another blaze. However, the Pomonal-born forest fire manager cautioned the town could still be threatened in coming days and weeks.