Victoria Ablaze

..... Naomi Parsons drove her four children, six cats, two dogs and a blue-tongue lizard to safety shortly before midnight last night following an official meeting in the town to warn of the fire danger.

"Common sense to me is I've got four kids to worry about,'' she told Radio 3AW.

"We've only got one road in, one road out. The winds are increasing, the temperature is increasing. We've had absolutely no rain, everything is so dry. [So it's] better to be prepared, we can always unpack, better to be safe.''

While she and her children had been prepared to stay and defend their property on Black Saturday earlier this month, Ms Parsons had changed her mind after that day's inferno ripped through neighbouring towns killing at least 209 people.

"It was just too close to home ... we don't want another Kinglake, do we?''

Another local, Peter from the Warburton bakery, said at least half of the town's residents had left in recent days ahead of the extreme weather forecast.

Despite the mass departure, he was determined to stay at least until this afternoon.

"It seems a bit subdued [in the town], a few cars floating around, a lot of fire crews floating around,''......

Re: djjd62 (Post 3580167)
Thank you, djjd. I think quite a few residents of Warburton & other "at risk" country areas would be very grateful if your positive vibes work!

Many of Warburton's residents have already evacuated as an expected wind change threatens to push bushfires towards the town.

Up to 90 kilometres of containment lines are in place, aircraft are on standby and 750 firefighters and other emergency service personnel are stationed north of Warburton fighting the fire.

Early this afternoon, the fire was contained but a south-westerly wind change this afternoon could lead to the fire jumping containment lines and moving south towards Warburton.

For some locals, spoken to by The Age today, it's a waiting game - a cup of tea at the coffee shop on the main street - others want to know how long they have before they have to get out of town.

More than half of the town's residents appear to have taken the option to leave early following the warnings of an extreme fire danger day. ...<cont>

The seven bushfires still burning in Victoria are not threatening any townships this morning.

Firefighters have spent the night backburning and strengthening containment lines, as they prepare for more dangerous weather on Friday.

Residents living near the fires are being warned to expect smoke.

Crews have been on the lookout for spot fires from the Murrindindi blaze, near Rubicon, north-east of Melbourne.

Department of Sustainability and Environment spokesman Stuart Ord says they are trying to stop the fires spreading before conditions worsen.

"Today is just a day of consolidation of all of our fire lines and our containment lines, particularly on the southern edge," he said.

"When the bad weather comes on Friday, the fire will tend to want to run south or south-east, so we'll be particularly concentrating on the south and south-eastern flanks of all of the fires that we've currently got.