Australian Bushfires

This article is very short, so first, please listen to the news article: Click here to listen

Questions:
1) What are residents advised to do? Try to explain with different keywords than those used in the audio.
2) According to the article, is this situation typical for the time of year?
3) In the audio at 0:12 you hear 'Helicopters whir overhead'. From just listening, how do we know it isn't 'Helicopters were overhead,'?

If you couldn't catch everything from listening, then please see the article here.
You can see the full BBC article here.