Excess growth across the Mallee from above-average rainfall could create the perfect firestorm during the 2016-17 bushfire season.
The warning came from the district’s Country Fire Authority (CFA) operations officer.
District 18 CFA operations officer Dean Simmons believes this season’s fire danger period will begin a week later, in mid-November, due to the wet conditions across the southern Murray-Darling Basin.
“From our perspective, the fire danger period arrives historically around Melbourne Cup long weekend, so people are usually used to that,” Mr Simmons said.
“Last year it came in two weeks early because we didn’t receive much rain during spring.
“Everything was very dry and the harvest was very slow, but now we have different rainfall levels at different seasons.”
However, Mr Simmons says the fire danger period could be declared earlier if the region experiences a burst of hot weather that will dry the growth out.
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