Vic: Holiday sites named fire hot spots

AAP General News (Australia)
12-19-2005
Vic: Holiday sites named fire hot spots

MELBOURNE, Dec 19 AAP - Victoria's popular holiday spots of the Otway Ranges, Macedon
and along the Mornington Peninsula have been identified as the areas most at risk of bushfires
this summer.

The Department of Sustainability and Environment's (DSE) new chief fire officer Ewan
Waller said the department was in a watching phase as the state neared the end of its
warmest year on record.

"There's an underlying dryness which we will definitely watch," Mr Waller said today.

"It's going to be a trying year because of that warmness."

Victoria was one of the most fire-prone areas in the world, and the DSE was anxious
not to have a repeat of the devastating alpine region fires of 2003 or the out-of-control
fuel reduction burn-off which swept across 6,000ha at Wilsons Promontory in March this
year.

Conditions across the state were average for this time of year, but the DES was still
preparing for the worst, Mr Waller said.

"If the dry weather continues and it looks like it will ... the main concern is the
south-west side of the state," he said.

The fire prone areas were the Otways and along the west coast through the popular seaside
town of Lorne.

There was a dry ring around the You Yangs Regional Park west of Melbourne north to Macedon.

The outer fringes of the Dandenong Ranges down to the Mornington Peninsula would become
areas of concern as they dried out over the next few weeks, Mr Waller said.

"We are in the summer pattern, the grass has already dried off," he said.

"If we do get a hot northerly followed by an abrupt south-westerly change then we'll
really have to be on our toes."

AAP jmw/gfr/mon/de

KEYWORD: BUSHFIRES VIC

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