Go Fund Me has provided a fundraising update:

Since the New Year’s Eve fires —

• $5M has been raised on GoFundMe to support communities, victims, wildlife and firefighters
• Over 90k donations have been made
• 1.6k GoFundMe pages have been launched
• Australians from every state and territory have donated. The world is taking notice with donors from over 80 countries including the U.S., U.K, Canada, New Zealand, France, Italy, Netherlands, Japan, Spain and more.

Nicola Britton, the regional manager for the site says:

Our team of Trust and Safety experts continue to work around the clock to implement GoFundMe crisis management protocols. This means they are monitoring the bushfires closely, vetting all funds and working alongside campaign organisers to ensure donations, small and large, reach the right place.

We have updated the ‘how big are these fires’ interactive again

There are a lot of images going around

Kevin Rudd has written a piece on how he sees the government’s response:

So why does Abbott do it? The truth is he doesn’t give a damn about policy. Abbott has always been 100% politics. He’s always seen climate as the perfect political wedge against Labor among working families, deploying fear campaigns based on wildly exaggerated projections about jobs and the cost of living. He’s done the same internally, using it to divide and conquer his moderate opponents in the Liberal party.

Pretty tawdry when now we see half the country going up in smoke!

But here’s the rub. The Abbott denialist cult has taken over the entire Coalition. It continues under Morrison and, when they oust him soon, it will continue under Peter Dutton. It’s become the battle cry of the far right which now runs the entire conservative show in Canberra.

Of the 300 people who registered to leave Mallacoota yesterday, and have been delayed by the smoke, Lisa Neville says:

The smoke has come in. We have established another set of community meetings. We need to consult with people if they want to go on the ship now or wait for the smoke to clear and that could take a couple of days.

There could be others who put their hand up, given the smoke conditions, and want to go on the boat as well.

So we’ll be in a better position later today to know whether people use the ship to get out or are waiting.

Overall we thought there would be 800 people who did not want to leave. This is changing the longer people are in that position.

Daniel Andrews on what can be done to help, once this is over (which won’t be for a while):

The PM has talked about trying to supplement people’s incomes, trying to support small businesses.

Tourism is a large part of the economic activity across many of these regions. Agriculture, primary production. There are many different sectors that are the lifeblood of some of these fire-affected communities.

I think we can get a pretty seamless approach to this.

We’ll do our part. The commonwealth have laid out a plan to do more themselves. Between our government and the commonwealth government and local councils, I think we can get economic stimulus and real drive into the local communities and do the physical rebuilding.

That will be very, very important. Whilst it’s not appropriate for tourists to go to the fire-affected communities now, there will be a time when we’ll be urging people instead of taking a trip elsewhere to get into a fire-affected community and spend some of your hard-earned money there.

That may be worth an enormous amount to those communities. That will be later on.

Daniel Andrews again stresses that Victoria cannot take any goods or food for donations – and in fact this is now causing issues.

We don’t mean to cause offence but now is the time we don’t need more food, we don’t need more clothing, we have enough of that.

We have so much of it, so generous of people, that it’s causing a big logistics challenge, trucks on the road, staff being diverted from other important activities.

The best thing to do, Google the Victorian Bushfire Appeal and give money, whether it be $1 or more, every donation helps.

Every single cent gets on to families who need that sort of support.

I don’t want to appear blunt. We know where it comes from. These donations come from great kindnesses, but it’s now causing issues, and money is the best thing from our point of view.

Lisa Neville:

As we see this rain today, that has good and bad, bad for firefighters and good for just a sense of relief.

It is not a sign. It is not a time to now become complacent.

It is only January 6. We have significant fires in the landscape. We’ve got other parts of the state drying out as we speak.

So this is an opportunity for people to remain focused, listen to messages, listen to warnings.

Whether you’re in those fire-affected areas or in other areas that could get impacted as the state continues to dry out, I know this is really hard and I know it’s taking a massive toll on communities affected.

People have been living with this for weeks now.

Particularly the last week has been exceptionally difficult.

Again, our role, my role, my prime role here is to keep you safe, to make sure we’re taking the burden off you as much as we can.

The Victorian police and emergency services minister, Lisa Neville, is also providing an update on the evacuations – and when people can get back to their communities to see what is left:

This morning I have approved the removal of the evacuation order in order to get people home where that is possible.

Again I would say to people in doing this, please be careful. But also please be aware, very aware, that it is likely, very likely, that later in this week that such an order will be issued again, depending on the forecast.

At this stage the Thursday, Friday do look like fire spike days. If necessary, I will reissue that order.

But I’m very aware that there are some communities which weren’t impacted over the weekend and where people want to get back to their own homes, their own beds. That’s why we’ve lifted this order.

The disaster declaration remains in place until Thursday. It is only the evacuation order that has been lifted.

Victorian emergency commissioner Andrew Crisp gives more of an update:

We have 27 going fires and 16 watch and act warnings out there. The fact we’ve been able to pull back from the emergency warnings to watch and acts reflects the suppressed fire behaviour we’re seeing at the moment.

I say suppressed because it’s not gone away. It is there waiting for the next hot day, the next strong wind, whether that’s the northerlies or the southerlies.

We know these fires will become dynamic and dangerous again. The message is very much about people needing to stay aware of their local conditions.

There are still four people missing in Victoria.

Two hundred homes have been destroyed (a number expected to rise by at least 100).

The agency will be permanent, Daniel Andrews says. Because the future means it will have to be.

Because we’re going to see longer fire seasons and we are going to see – we should just be honest about the fact we’re going to see more and more fires, more and more damage as each fire season comes.

To have that standing capacity, the important expertise and have that there at a moment’s notice I think is a wise investment on our part.

Daniel Andrews has announced a new agency, dedicated to the bushfire recovery, with a $50m initial allocation.

Given we’ve got so much damage so early on in the fire season, I don’t want [emergency commissioner] Andrew Crisp and the work he’s doing, the superb work he’s doing and all of our fire agencies, they’ve got a big job to keep us safe from active fires. I don’t think they can turn their mind to recovery. They have to continue to do the work they’ve been doing so well.

It’s my judgment and the judgment of Cabinet and decided to establish Bushfire Recovery Victoria.

It will coordinate all government efforts to make sure that we [work] with local communities every step of the way.

Not just for weeks and months, but it can be years before communities properly recover from such devastating bushfire.

It will be headed by former Victorian police commissioner, Ken Lay.

The Mallacoota evacuation has been delayed by the smoke haze, Victorian premier Daniel Andrews says.

There were 300 people who were due to be airlifted today, which has been pushed back.

Andrews also says a fire truck overturned yesterday, but there were no injuries.

While the smoke is good for fire in terms of keeping some of the temperatures down, it makes access by the air much more challenging.

The rainfall is good in some parts but it can make things particularly dangerous. We had a forest fire management vehicle tip over yesterday.

No one was injured I’m pleased to say. It gives you a sense of how complex this task is.

Ever-changing and lots of different challenges.

I think we’re equal to it and I’ll take this opportunity again to thank everybody out there playing their part. Great team effort.

Hazard reduction burning is still dominating the “what happened” and “what can we do in the future” conversations.

This is despite countless experts and fire and emergency commissioners saying they did what they could, but the window to carry it out has been rapidly shrinking.

The Victorian premier was asked about it this morning on Melbourne radio 3AW, AAP reports:

You can only put fire into the landscape when it is safe to do so. You have to [burn] the hectares the climate allows you to do,” Daniel Andrews said.

Not just some broad hectare count to make you feel good, you have to be really careful.”

How long it takes the more than 7m hectares of land which has burned so far, to recover will depend on what happens next with the drought.

CSIRO principal research scientist Andrew Sullivan spoke to AAP:

“Within 12 months you will find most areas covered in a green sheen, in new spouts and coverage.

“If you continue to go into drought, the response of the trees is going to be affected. If you get some good rain … the response from the native vegetation is that much better.”

Malcolm Turnbull has been retweeting stories featuring Julie Bishop’s call for global climate change leadership, where she also says Australia has no real climate policy itself.

And yes, both were in government and could have done something about it. I know.

An agricultural market analyst is speaking to the ABC.

He estimates about 9% of the national cattle market, or about 3 million head of cattle, were situated in the firezone.

The sheep flock is also extensive - about 1% or more than 8 million.

There is no estimation on what has been lost so far. But it is not just the immediate losses – it’s keeping those who survived, alive, with no immediate access to fodder.