Fire-ravaged Victorians will have access to support payments and emergency accommodation under a $19.5 million (NZ$22.8 million) package, as more than 30 blazes continue to scorch the state.<\/p>\n
Premier Jacinta Allan and Anthony Albanese made the joint announcement in Bendigo on Sunday.<\/p>\n
“My message to Victorians is pretty simple, we’ve got your back,” the prime minister said.<\/p>\n
“Not just during this crisis, but through the recovery as well.”<\/p>\n
Under the package, a $10 million (NZ$11.6 million) program to help distribute fodder to farmers in need will be available.<\/p>\n
Communities most impacted by the bushfires will be able to claim a one-off disaster recovery payment of $1000 (NZ$1170) for each adult and $400 (NZ$468) per child.<\/p>\n
From Wednesday, residents in Barkers Creek, Harcourt, Harcourt North, Longwood, Longwood East, Natimuk, Ravenswood South, Ruffy and Sutton Grange will be eligible.<\/p>\n
More than 350,000 hectares of land has been burnt so far.<\/p>\n
“We are not through the worst of this, by a long way,” Allan said.<\/p>\n
There are 32 active fires across the state, with 10 major fire grounds.<\/p>\n
Victorian Emergency Management Commissioner Tim Wiebusch said more than 300 structures had been lost.<\/p>\n
“In good news, we are starting to get on top of some of these fires,” he said.<\/p>\n
Wiebusch said “disappointingly” spectators had been heading into some of the areas devastated by fire.<\/p>\n
“We only expect to see locals if it is safe to be in there at all, so please do not enter those fire impacted zones,” he said.<\/p>\n
Among those devastated by the fires is a family and their beloved cat who were rescued by a police helicopter as their regional Victorian home was destroyed by fire.<\/p>\n
The trio, two women and a 92-year-old man, bunkered down on their remote Caveat property, seeking safety in a shipping container on their land as fire swept through the area.<\/p>\n
The family slept in their car on Friday night.<\/p>\n
With no road access, police used a helicopter on Saturday morning to transport the group and their cat Grisha to Seymour. <\/p>\n
One of the women, an 82-year-old, had her hair singed by the flames and was treated for burns to her hands.<\/p>\n
Victoria Police Air Wing Tactical Flight Officer Brittany Smith described the destruction from the air as heartbreaking.<\/p>\n
“By no means do we encourage people to shelter in shipping containers however on this occasion all I can say is this family is extremely lucky,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It was good we were able to get in and get them out. We were glad we could provide assistance when they needed us.”<\/p>\n
A state of emergency has been declared for 18 local government areas.<\/p>\n
Several emergency level blazes were dotted across the state but firefighting efforts were concentrated on a huge blaze in Victoria’s centre and another in the northeast, near the NSW border.<\/p>\n
A blaze that ripped through Harcourt, northeast of Castlemaine in the Central Highlands, claimed at least 50 structures, including homes and businesses.<\/p>\n
Bonnie and Remy Sowman were speechless as they looked upon the blackened ruins of their cafe, which held a special place in the Harcourt community.<\/p>\n
The couple left their home and business on Friday when the conditions began to change.<\/p>\n
Sowman described the day as a blur.<\/p>\n
“We had a friend who posted some footage and it was bad along where we live. Most of the night we thought our house was gone,” she told AAP.<\/p>\n
The danger is not over despite the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting milder weather on Sunday, with winds easing but changing direction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fire-ravaged Victorians will have access to support payments and emergency accommodation under a $19.5 million (NZ$22.8 million) package,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-230161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}