Bushfires

Bushfires have closed the Eyre Highway for the second time this summer, with no confirmation of when the critical road route will reopen.

Fires are affecting regional communities in Victoria and Tasmania, with firefighters battling multiple fronts in both states.

While the mercury reached almost 50C in parts of Australia this week, Tasmania is bracing for its own heatwave — albeit at a far less ferocious temperature — and it'll bring the worst fire conditions of the summer.

Residents on NSW's South Coast felt trapped with nowhere to flee to but the beach during the Black Summer bushfires, but the state government is trialling a possible solution.

Victorians face warnings of extreme heat and another storm threat just a week after a fire destroyed 46 homes in Pomonal and an intense storm killed a man in Gippsland.  

Crime data extracted by the ABC shows big spikes in arson offences across New South Wales, with some regional areas reporting rates up to eight times the state average.

WA Police detectives are investigating the cause of the bushfire that prompted an emergency warning for Bibra Lake after reports a flare may have caused the blaze.

Victoria's Premier Jacinta Allan has confirmed one more home was destroyed by a bushfire at Pomonal. Meanwhile, more homes are being reconnected to power after last week's storm.

AusNet says power was restored to another 7,000 homes affected by Tuesday's electricity outage, but 15,000 properties in the Gippsland area remain cut off and some may not be back on the network for several days.

This regional Victorian town already has a housing shortage, but with more than 40 homes destroyed by bushfires this week, local real estate agents are working together to try and find rentals for those who lost everything.

Victoria's destructive storms and bushfires have claimed at least 60 properties, as tens of thousands of customers wait for power to be restored.

Campers and residents were evacuated from a popular coastal region of north-east Tasmania because of a bushfire burning through the area.

Residents of the Grampians in western Victoria tell how they had to make split-second decisions as fire raced towards them.

Multiple homes have been destroyed by fires in Victoria's west, as tens of thousands of homes and businesses wait to be reconnected to power following Tuesday's deadly storms.

As residents in Victoria's west begin to grasp the damage wrought by bushfires around the Grampians, thousands of Victorians are still waiting for power to be reconnected following Tuesday's deadly storms.

Conditions have eased to advice level as a bushfire burns near homes and a school in Esperance, on WA's south-east coast. 

As bushfires continued to rage in Victoria's west, residents were also been hit with major power outages from severe thunderstorms.

Regional Victorian communities around the Grampians National Park have been threatened by bushfires started by lightning strikes, as a thunderstorm topples trees and leaves thousands without power in Melbourne.

More than four years after the Black Summer bushfires incinerated millions of hectares on the east coast, traces of the event have faded but remain stark in people's memories. 

Fire authorities warn Victorians to brace for a "catastrophic" fire danger rating today, with parts of the state urged to be ready to evacuate.

Victorian fire authorities urge several communities in the state's north-west to consider evacuating tonight, ahead of "catastrophic" fire conditions forecast for Tuesday.

They may spend most of their time spraying crops, but "rugged" planes have transformed from farming equipment into firefighting machines to help extinguish a blaze threatening a tiny coastal community in Tasmania.

A review obtained by the ABC finds preparation for the 2020 burn in the Kimberley was "underpinned by plans produced by a division based in Perth" and contained information irrelevant to the local landscape.

As Perth and parts of Western Australia swelter through a second heatwave in as many weeks, data shows hot weather has left almost five times more people in hospital than bushfires in recent years.

A preliminary report suggests hypoxia could be the reason three aerial firefighting crew members, including 22-year-old William Jennings from the US, died when their plane crashed in rural Queensland in November.