Thousands of people trapped by bushfires ravaging Australia
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Thousands of people were trapped as their small seaside town was threatened by one of the bushfires that have been ravaging parts of Australia.
Around 4,000 people gathered at the foreshore in Mallacoota in the state of Victoria on Tuesday morning as the fire approached.
At 8am, the flames roared past the town’s airport and the temperature shot up to 49C (120F), according to the state’s newspaper The Age, as reported by Sky News (UK).
Thousands are facing a harrowing New Year’s Eve night on the beach in NSW after out-of-control bushfires suddenly flared up this morning and were blown east.
Police have confirmed a father and son have died trying to defend their home from the devastating Cobargo fire that almost completely destroyed the historic NSW village. Fire is also bearing down on Batemans Bay, on the NSW South Coast, with the town now cut off from the outside.
The Prime Minister paid tribute to volunteer firefighter Samuel McPaul, 28, who was killed when the Rural Fire Service truck he was in was hit by ferocious winds outside of Albury in the south of NSW.
Out-of-control fires are blazing in three states, with conditions set to worsen in some regions.
Sky’s report adds that the sky went black and then dark red as the fire threw embers near residents who had gathered on the beach – many wearing swimming goggles and breathing masks, some sitting in boats. People on the beach said they could see houses being destroyed and hear gas canisters exploding.
Country Fire Authority chief officer Steve Warrington said three strike teams were based in the town and were protecting residents.
The huge bushfires have destroyed more than 4 million hectares (10 million acres), with new blazes sparked into life almost daily by extremely hot and windy conditions in bushland left tinder dry after a three-year drought.
Fuelled by searing temperatures and high winds, more than 200 fires are now burning across the southeastern states of New South Wales and Victoria, threatening several towns. “It’s going to be a very long, difficult dangerous night still ahead,” Shane Fitzsimmons, commissioner of the NSW Rural Fire Service, told a briefing in Sydney. “It’s going to be another difficult day again tomorrow.”
