Residents and holidaymakers in Cape Otway, southwest Victoria, have been urged to take immediate shelter as bushfires swept across the region – leaving 100 campers cut off.
‘There is a bushfire at Blanket Bay Road, Cape Otway that is out of control,’ said the warning issued from VicEmergency at 7am on Wednesday.
‘The bushfire is travelling in a westerly direction towards Lighthouse Road.
‘It is too late to leave the area safely so you must take shelter now.’
However, the Chief Fire Officer with Forest Fire Management Victoria, Chris Hardiman, said one group of campers was not able to safely leave.
‘We’ve actually got about 100 campers at Blanket Bay campground that are isolated. It’s just not safe to get them out at the moment,’ he told ABC Radio Melbourne.
Mr Hardiman said the campers were not in immediate danger despite being unable to evacuate, and another 22 people had been relocated to Cape Otway Lightstation for their safety.
‘They’re very safe there. They’ve got firefighting resources with them so there’s no immediate danger.’
‘There is a bushfire at Blanket Bay Road, Cape Otway that is out of control,’ said the warning issued from VicEmergency at 7am on Wednesday
About 100 campers at Blanket Bay campground, Cape Otway, have been isolated due to the blaze
An evacuation centre was set up at the Apollo Bay Community Hall, in Whelan Street, Apollo Bay.
As of 8.15am on Wednesday morning, there were two out of control bushfires in the Cape Otway area, according to VicEmergency.
One blaze on Red Hill Track was 11 hectares, with 6 fire crews responding.
And another, smaller fire on Lighthouse Road had 22 crews responding.
Popular with tourists, Cape Otway is a leading attraction on the Great Ocean Road.
The fresh fires came after a blaze in the Grampians National Park which was declared contained on Monday after it burned for three weeks, destroying homes and killing vast numbers of animals.
The Grampians bushfire burned through 76,000 hectares of land and killed hundreds of livestock. (HANDOUT/STATE CONTROL CENTRE)
Agricultural land, infrastructure and livestock were destroyed by the blaze over three weeks. (HANDOUT/STATE CONTROL CENTRE)
The fire scorched 76,000 hectares of land and brought holiday tourism in western Victoria to a standstill.
The park remains closed but residents can return to their properties. It’s estimated the destruction has cost the local economy about $2million.
Many businesses in surrounding towns were not ready to reopen straight away, Grampians Tourism chief executive Marc Sleeman said.
‘A lot of the supplies they had for that busy period would have been used up or thrown out,’ he told AAP.
‘Now begins the task of rebuilding without the cash that they would have had from that Christmas period.’
Mr Sleeman estimates the fire cost the local economy more than $1.9 million.
He said the road to recovery would be long and tough, and the visitor experience would be diminished if operators were unable to get back on their feet.
‘We’re certainly going to need the support of state government with some reopening, recovery marketing dollars,’ Mr Sleeman said.
Northern Grampians Shire mayor Karen Hyslop said the council would work to get relief for businesses, pointing out many were also impacted by bushfires in February that wiped out a third of the town of Pomonal.
‘There was COVID and then there was the fires in February and now this,’ she said.
Four residential properties in Moyston and Mafeking were destroyed in the Grampian fires, along with 40 outbuildings in the area.
Some 13,538ha of farmland was burnt, 540km of fencing damaged and preliminary livestock losses tally at 775 sheep, one horse, one cow and 1285 beehives.
The impact to pastures was significant, said Victorian Farmers Federation president Brett Hosking.
‘The farmers we met were still quite shell-shocked,’ he said.
‘It’s going to be two years or more to fully recovery, to get pastures fully established, fences completed, get infrastructure rebuilt.’
Beyond the immediate need for fencing to keep livestock off roads, Mr Hosking said providing fodder and livestock agistment were priorities for local farmers.
‘Farmers right across Victoria, NSW, South Australia are very generously donating fodder and agistment to some of those impacted farmers,” he said.
‘But the challenge of actually connecting the two … is still an expensive process so I think there’s a role for government to step in and provide some fodder subsidies.’
