The Sydney Morning Herald

“You wake up and are you right for about two minutes, and then that overwhelming anxiety comes into your body and you’re just sick. Sick to your stomach.”

David Sudholz, Natimuk CFA captain and Michael’s brother, rushed out to fight the fire when it was spotted at 12.43pm, and was astounded by its speed.

“One minute [there] was nothing, and next minute we’re in the smoke, and then there was fires everywhere around us, like all the grass was suddenly catching fire,” he said.

Updated January 13, 2026 — 2:25pm,first published January 13, 2026 — 10:42am

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More than 160 homes have been burnt down in the devastating fires across the state, as the full extent of last week’s catastrophic bushfires remains to be realised.

A behemoth fire burning in Victoria’s far north-east has grown ahead of more dangerous fire conditions on Sunday.

However, milder conditions in the coming days are expected to give firefighters a better chance at containing blazes, which are expected to burn for weeks.

The Longwood fire stood stable at 142,421 hectares on Saturday evening, while the Walwa fire stretching over the NSW border grew to 93,456 hectares – an increase of some 400 hectares.

“Yesterday, we saw more than 200 grass and scrub fires affect every corner of our state.”

The town of Harcourt, south of Bendigo, was the hardest hit, with more than 50 structures wiped out, including several homes and businesses.

The Bendigo railway line has also been damaged by fire and is now closed, with buses replacing trains.

At 5pm, authorities issued evacuation warnings for Kinglake and Marysville, heavily forested towns to Alexandra’s south – not far from Melbourne’s urban fringe.

Both were decimated in the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009.

More than 100,000 properties are out of power across the state, with the disruptions forcing the closure of businesses and community facilities across Melbourne.

What initially started with power outages in the regional towns of Kyneton and Wallan has since expanded to include sections of Melbourne.

A three-year-old child and his parents have died in a catastrophic collision with a truck at a rural intersection in Victoria’s south-west.

Police said the family’s vehicle drove directly into the path of a B-double truck after failing to give way at a stop sign about 9.30am Tuesday.

Speaking at the scene, major collision investigation unit Detective Inspector Craig McEvoy said the car was T-boned by the truck, causing it to roll before eventually coming to rest on its side.