Down in Victoria for Christmas period - seems the destruction has followed me - today was 40+ across the whole state with strong northerlies.

Holiday area of east Gippsland (i'm in south Gippsland) was shut down with major access road blocked. Residents and holidaymakers were urged to evacuate. A fire even broke out in the forested suburbs of Melbourne. Conditions were scary in all the southern states, including Tasmania which recorded record highs, but they did well to get through it without loss of life.

Have mentioned this before, but the southern states (SA, Vic, Tas) are streets ahead of nsw and qld in terms of dealing with extreme fire threats. Today's conditions were as bad if not worse than anything nsw or qld have faced in the last few months, but with a drastically mitigated outcome.

Still waiting on the cool change which is expected to swing the winds into the south at 40-50kph posing an additional short but intense threat before conditions ease tomorrow.

One firefighter was killed in nsw when two fire trucks rolled over, reportedly due to strong winds but would need to see that report confirmed - would question whether the winds were strong enough to flip fire trucks.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/30/one-firefighter-killed-australia...