The Associated Press
MELBOURNE, Australia — Overnight rain and cooler temperatures helped firefighters in southern Australia keep wildfires within firebreaks Wednesday, after whipping winds raised fears of a repeat of last month’s uncontrolled blazes that killed more than 200 people.
An average of 0.8 inches (20 millimeters) fell across areas where four main blazes burned in Victoria state late Tuesday and early Wednesday, helping to dampen them. While all four continued to burn Wednesday, officials said threats to residents in the region had largely passed.
“We see a very bright light at the end of the tunnel now, we see that this weather is over,” Emergency Services Commissioner Bruce Esplin said Wednesday. “There’s an opportunity for the communities of Victoria to start their process of grieving, start their process of rebuilding, without the ever-present threat of fire.”
Officials had warned that wind gusts of up to 75 miles (120 kilometers) per hour on Tuesday posed a fire threat akin to Feb. 7, known as “Black Saturday,” when at least 210 people were killed by fast-moving blazes.
More than 600 schools and child-care centers were closed Tuesday, as were 30 national parks where fires could still spring up. Some 5 million people were sent text messages on their mobile phones warning them of the dangerous conditions.
Up to 5,000 firefighters and state emergency personnel, backed by hundreds of trucks and water-dumping helicopters, remained on alert.
Steve Warrington of the Country Fire Authority said any major danger to residents from the blazes would have happened Tuesday.
“Mother nature threw just about everything at Victoria yesterday. We had winds, we had dust storms, we had rain, we had fires, just about everything possible,” he said.
The Country Fire Authority said the main fires were still within containment lines but that they were watching forecasts of strong winds later Wednesday. Communities were told to remain vigilant.
An unknown number of people are still missing from the Feb. 7 fires, and officials said Wednesday it will be some time before police conclude their search for victims in the remains of homes and buildings.
“The process for us is a very complicated one of trying to understand how many people were in the areas,” said Christine Nixon, head of the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority. “As we also go through ... the properties we may well come across the remains of people. It’s a matter for us to work our way through, but that will take a little while yet.”