NSW bushfires ‘apocalyptic’
Unprecedented number at extreme level
Unprecedented wildfires razing Australia’s droughtstricken east coast have left three people dead and several missing, more than 30 injured and more than 100 homes destroyed, officials said yesterday.
The fires cast an ominous orange glow over large areas of eastern New South Wales, and some locals described the scene as “apocalyptic”.
About 1500 firefighters were battling 80 fires across Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales, Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said.
About 92,000 people were affected by the fires.
Firefighters yesterday found a body in a burned car near Glen Innes and a body in a burnt-out building at Johns River. A woman who was found unconscious and with serious burns near Glen Innes the previous day had died in hospital, he said. Seven people have been reported missing in the vicinity.
“We are expecting that number [of missing persons] to climb,” Fitzsimmons said. “There are really grave concerns there could be more losses or indeed more fatalities.”
More than 30 people including firefighters received medical treatment
for burns and one patient had a cardiac arrest, he said.
At least 100 homes were estimated to have been destroyed, but that could rise significantly.
Hundreds of people evacuated their homes along a 500km swathe of the eastern seaboard from the Queensland state border south to Forster, 300km north of Sydney.
More than 300 people evacuated overnight to a social club in the town
of Taree, including Club Taree’s chief executive Morgan Stewart.
“We’re hearing lots of stories of lost houses, lost property, goods and effects, animals, land. It’s going to be horrific, I think,” Stewart said.
The fire danger reached unprecedented levels in New South Wales on Friday, when 17 fires were burning at the most extreme danger rating known as the Emergency Warning Level.
“The fact that we have 17 at once yesterday and another nine burning at Watch and Act [Level] is a magnitude that we simply haven’t seen before,” Fitzsimmons said.