Victorian Bushfires: accessing disaster assistance and tips to keep in touch

Severe weather and bushfires have hit much of Southeast Australia, particularly in regional Victoria, causing widespread disruption and dangerous conditions. If you’ve been affected by these bushfires, we can help.

Chris Taylor · 09 January 2026 · 3 minute read

For a list of areas that are eligible for disaster assistance, just scroll down.

With these bushfires and other extreme conditions brought on by the heat and strong winds in recent days, infrastructure and access to our normal methods of keeping in touch can be severely impacted.

Helping you stay in touch

We’ve activated an assistance package for customers in affected areas, including in parts of the Strathbogie, Towong and Murrindindi local government areas. That means we’ll bestow 100GB of extra data for post-paid and 25GB for prepaid mobile customers so you’re not caught short when you need to be online, and we’ll divert any calls to any of your landlines to another number of your choice. 

If you need to call family, friends or loved ones and your mobile phone isn’t working, you can also use one of our payphones to make free local and national calls to fixed lines and free calls to standard Australian mobile numbers.

We’ve also enabled free use of the Telstra Air Wi-Fi network in locations where payphones provide this – if you’re near a payphone, the ‘Telstra Air’ Wi-Fi network will get you online and back in touch.

If you need to reach us, you can contact our dedicated Disaster Support number on 1800 888 888.

Our assistance package also gives Telstra customers access to free and interim services during short-term impacts from damaging weather, with long-term measures also available for customers who have suffered severe damage or loss of their homes and businesses.

For customers who have been displaced from their residence or business during a natural disaster event, short-term assistance can include: 

  • Calls diverted from a fixed line service to another number while you’re displaced from your residence or business (to Australian numbers only)
  • 100GB data pack for post-paid mobile customers (30-day expiry, not transferrable to another service) 
  • 25GB prepaid data and free calls (30-day expiry, not transferrable to another service)

There may also be longer term assistance available for Telstra customers who have suffered severe damage to or loss of their premises and require longer term assistance. 

The long-term assistance package includes:

  • Free call diversion from the customer’s Telstra fixed phone service to another Australian fixed or mobile service of their choice, regardless of the carrier. 
  • A one-off credit to the customer’s Telstra fixed phone account to cover the costs of connecting a Telstra fixed phone service at one temporary address; and
  • Re-connection of a Telstra fixed phone service at the customer’s original permanent address. 

Eligible Victorian postcodes for disaster assistance

Postcodes that are currently eligible for our assistance package are below: