Risk arrives early

Areas around Wodonga and west to Rutherglen and Chiltern are 100 per cent cured.

That matches the experience of two-thirds of Victoria, with grasslands ready to burn quickly.

A map on the Country Fire Authority website reveals curing rates not normally seen until February, raising concerns of an extreme January bushfire period.

But some Border areas are not yet into this zone.

Inspector Marg Wehner, from the NSW Rural Fire Service’s southern border region, said the curing rate for the immediate Albury area was probably well below this.

“We had rain on Boxing Day and then less than two weeks before that,” she said.

“I do the curing rates every week and I still think that in this part of the world – say east of the Olympic Highway and maybe a bit further to the west, like Walla way – we’re still only about 75 per cent.

“We’ve had incredibly hot weather and it’s very difficult to imagine that the grasses are not going to go off.

“But we’ve also had rain. I’ve got a farm and we’ve got an underlying green pick because of that rain.”

CFA district 24 operations officer Mark Owens said any moisture from recent rain was largely gone.

“Pretty much the patch is looking around the 100 per cent mark for Wodonga across to Rutherglen down to around Chiltern,” he said

“That’s the open grassland area. If we look right along the Border, we’re sitting at anywhere up to between 80 to 90 per cent.

“Where you run down some of those valleys we’re probably sitting in the 60 to 70 per cent range.”

Alpine areas are about 30 per cent.

The dry October exacerbated curing rates.

Mr Owens said it was no surprise then that the Barnawartha blaze on December 20 ran as it did.

While high temperatures are tipped again for Thursday and Friday, winds of between 5km/h and 10km/h will reduce the risk.

“If that wind changes and gets a bit higher there’s every possibility of a total fire ban.”