THE fire season has already reached north west Victoria and could be less than a month away for the rest of the state.
David Packham, who was a CSIRO bushfire researcher for 18 years and worked as the Bureau of Meteorology's Rural Fire Weather Warning Services supervisor, said there was still time to reduce fuel loads in the state's south and east before evaporation raised the danger level."The shortage of grazing stock and not much roadside management means that we are certain to suffer fast moving and dangerous fires in the (western district) grasslands during January and February if we don't get sufficient rain to maintain greenness,'' he said.
But the extreme dryness of the north west had already reached levels as bad as those which occurred in 2009 ahead of the Black Saturday fires.
This was being periodically aggravated by bursts of hot and very, very dry air from central Australia, and gave Mildura its first extreme fire danger day on October 5.
"This is very dangerous indeed and would be catastrophic if in January or February,'' he said.
Temperatures at Mildura are forecast to reach 38C, 40C tomorrow and 44C Thursday.
