Plan B Forum

Dozens of bushfires are sweeping across southern Australia, fanned by hot weather and strong winds.
Officials say an unknown number of homes have been destroyed and a firefighter has been injured in the state of Victoria.

Some residents have been ordered to leave and flames have spread to the outer suburbs of Australia's second biggest city, Melbourne.

Conditions in Victoria are at their worst since 2009, authorities said.

Then, wildfires killed 173 people and destroyed about 2,000 homes in a disaster dubbed Black Saturday.

Emergency crews are also fighting blazes in South Australia and New South Wales.

At the scene
Belle Nolan, Warrandyte, Victoria, Australia

I live in Warrandyte in Victoria State with my fiance, Ryan - one of the worst affected areas.

There's no co-ordinated evacuation, but we all have a bushfire emergency alert on our phones. We got an alert of a fast moving bushfire in the area, and were then told we had to evacuate.

There was smoke, ash and embers everywhere. The police were already closing the roads. We got out just in time before another alert telling us it was now too late to leave.

It's now 12 hours since we left and we're heading back. We have been told the fire is contained but not over, so we're not quite sure what we're going back to. We know that three houses have been destroyed and 25 acres of land destroyed.

We do get a lot of alerts and some people are very complacent and say they will stay no matter what.

But there is only one road out of town, so if there is a problem you do need to be on it.