The authorities of the state of Victoria, in the southeast of Australia, issued an eviction order this Saturday for one town and asked the residents of another 26 not to return to their homes due to the forest fires that have hit the region in recent days. .
The most pressing emergency warning is the one issued for the town of Amphitheatre, a rural town of 223 inhabitants who were asked by the Victoria Emergency agency to leave “immediately”, “before conditions become too dangerous.”
“Emergency services may not be able to help you if you decide to stay,” reads the message issued by Victoria Emergency.
In addition to this warning, the agency issued two lower level notices for hundreds of people residing in 26 localities in the area that were evacuated in recent days.
The agency advises those who have already left their homes not to return for the moment and those who have not left not to move, avoid risks related to fire and check that they have enough water and food.
A thousand firefighters helped by more than 50 airplanes have been fighting the fire in the last week in the state of Victoria, which suffers from the high temperatures and lack of precipitation of the southern summer.
Although they have managed to control some of the outbreaks, the Institute of Meteorology has warned that the heat expected next week increases the risk of fires in the coming days, especially starting Wednesday.
The fire season in Australia, one of the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis, varies depending on the area and weather conditions, although they are generally recorded in the southern summer, between the months of December and March.
Between 2019 and 2020, during the so-called Black Summer, at least 33 people lost their lives due to the fires that devastated much of Victoria and New South Wales, affecting around 3 billion animals, burning around 3,000 homes and burning around 180,000. square kilometers of land.
