Victoria Bushfires as it happened: 11 major fires rage, 130 properties lost as State of Disaster declared; Total fire ban until Sunday

Thank you for following our live coverage of Victoria’s bushfires today as we’ve brought you the latest information and updates from our reporters at several fire sites across the state.

• More than 250 fires ignited across Victoria on Friday, 11 of which became major fires still burning on Saturday.
• More than 130 structures have so far been destroyed in Victoria, but that number will grow as crews assess more areas for damage. More than 300,000 hectares of land has been blackened in the fires.
• Three people previously unaccounted for in the Longwood area were located safely.
• Three firefighters sustained serious injuries while working to contain blazes across Victoria since Friday, including at Ruffy, Natimuk and an interstate firefighter who was required to be airlifted due to a pre-existing medical condition.
• Smoke loomed over Melbourne on Saturday evening, fanned by a south-westerly that carried it from blazes in the Otways.
• Several people, including firefighters, have returned to find their homes lost in Harcourt, north of Castlemaine, and others in the path of the Longwood fire near the hamlet of Ruffy and on the outskirts of Alexandra.
• On Saturday, water-bombing aircraft were helping ground crews to prevent the Longwood fire reaching the Strathbogie Ranges.
• Emergency services warned several communities in the Otways and to the south of Colac to leave their homes as a fire burned at Carlisle River. Another that had threatened the Great Ocean Road was downgraded on Saturday evening.
• Fire conditions will remain high across Victoria’s northern regions on Sunday, including in the north-east where the Walwa fire has already burned through 93,400 hectares. Across the state’s southern regions, fire conditions are expected to be moderate.

The smell of smoke is thick in Melbourne at the moment. As we reported earlier, it is drifting over from the Otways fires.

The Bureau of Meteorology told us the smoke should subside by late tonight, or by the early hours of tomorrow.

“Once we get into the later hours of the evening, things will shift a bit more southerly, so that might free up Melbourne from the smoke a bit. But this is more around midnight, [or] one to two in the morning tomorrow,” meteorologist Daniel Sherwin-Simpson said.

Let us know below how it is affecting you.

Melbourne’s Lord Mayor Nick Reece has urged a planned pro-Palestine protest in the city to not go ahead to ensure emergency services aren’t diverted from the fires.

Protesters have been organising a march for Sunday.

“At a time when the resources of the state are stretched to breaking point with fires we do not need police and other first responders being diverted to manage CBD protests,” Reece said in a statement on Saturday.

“Common sense and respect for other people in need should mean any planned protest does not go ahead.

“The protests planned for tomorrow will make no difference to global events but divert precious front line personal from fire ravaged communities.”

He said with the Jewish community still hurting after the Bondi terror attack and with Victorians fighting the fires, “to proceed with these protests would be selfish, divisive, and offensive”.

“Please put the good of your fellow Victorians first, call off these protests.”

As the wind changes this afternoon, Melbourne could also be shrouded in smoke from the Otways fires, the Bureau of Meteorology says.

A true south-westerly will send the smoke up over the Bellarine Peninsula, and then possibly through metropolitan Melbourne after about 6pm, meteorologist Daniel Sherwin-Simpson said.

“Once we get into the later hours of the evening, things will shift a bit more southerly, so that might free up Melbourne from the smoke a bit, but [that] is more around kind of midnight, [or 1am to 2am],” Sherwin-Simpson said.

“It’s a bit of a wait and see, but it looks like that fire is going to be going for quite a while. It’s got plenty of fuel to run into.”