How a Bushfire Burnt Christmas Day

VICTORIA- throughout the Christmas holidays the great ocean road was shut down to tourists visiting the area due to horrific bushfires. The blaze all started on the 23rd of December. By Christmas day all of the residents from Lorne had evacuated the area. It took over 300 firefighters to take control of the blaze.

It all started with a bolt from the sky. On that day there were several lightning strikes including one which started a fire on the Jamieson track- 8km west of Lorne. Towards the start, the blaze wasn’t spreading too far, but the hilly landscape wasn’t looking too good for the firefighters. The firefighters decided that they would call in their water bombing aircraft to help as they kept checking the weather forecast. They were worried about the winds picking up. By Christmas morning their worst fears came true.

Already all (1600) of the residents from Lorne had evacuated the area. On Boxing Day, it was thought that the conditions were worse for firefighters, however the rain at 4am eased of the sweat for firefighters. By morning the Great ocean road was ordered to be reopened between the town and Torquay. Once the residents woke up on Boxing Day they wondered whether their homes were going to make it through these horrific bushfires. The Christmas day bushfires caused 116 homes to be lost throughout the ranges o

Everyone knows the beautiful smells of Christmas day; the freshly cooked turkey and of course the sweet smelling pudding. But unfortunately for thousands of Victorians this Christmas will be remembered as the horrible smell of smoke. Everybody knew that where there was smoke there was a fire.

Wongarra resident Roderick Poole said it was a relief to be back.

"I've got a lot of animals running around my property so I'll be glad to see them in the daylight," he said.