Two people confirmed dead in South Australia as fires burn at emergency level across three different states
Emergency-level fires have swept across parts of New South Wales and South Australia,
and the death toll and number of injured firefighters has risen, as the
country’s severe heatwave and bushfire crisis continued on Saturday.
Two people were confirmed dead in South Australia, and homes were destroyed and communities evacuated in what authorities described as “an awful day” in which fires raged across three states, even creating their own thunderstorms in some parts of NSW.
At Lithgow, about two hours’ drive west of Sydney, residents were forced to flee as fires threatened the community of more than 10,000 people and destroyed several homes on the outskirts of the town. At 7pm, a person was reported unaccounted for in the Dargen area, near Lithgow, the ABC reported.
Four firefighters in NSW were treated for heat exhaustion on Saturday, the ambulance service said, while another firefighter was reportedly injured after being struck by a truck in Richmond.
On Saturday night, the Blue Mountains communities of Bilpin and Blackheath remained under threat, while southerly winds pushed a blaze away from Yanderra on Saturday afternoon. Fire fighters were expected to remain on the ground into the night.
“We have seen property impacted and lost,” the NSW RFS commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons, told a press conference on Saturday afternoon. “We have 3,000 firefighters and emergency services personnel out there dealing with the fires, a bad weather day.”
Ahead of Saturday, authorities had been preparing for what they knew
would be rarely-seen conditions. Catastrophic fire conditions were
declared in the state, with high winds, above 40C temperatures, low
humidity and long-term dryness in the bush combined to fan flames across
the country.Two people were confirmed dead in South Australia, and homes were destroyed and communities evacuated in what authorities described as “an awful day” in which fires raged across three states, even creating their own thunderstorms in some parts of NSW.
At Lithgow, about two hours’ drive west of Sydney, residents were forced to flee as fires threatened the community of more than 10,000 people and destroyed several homes on the outskirts of the town. At 7pm, a person was reported unaccounted for in the Dargen area, near Lithgow, the ABC reported.
Four firefighters in NSW were treated for heat exhaustion on Saturday, the ambulance service said, while another firefighter was reportedly injured after being struck by a truck in Richmond.
On Saturday night, the Blue Mountains communities of Bilpin and Blackheath remained under threat, while southerly winds pushed a blaze away from Yanderra on Saturday afternoon. Fire fighters were expected to remain on the ground into the night.
“We have seen property impacted and lost,” the NSW RFS commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons, told a press conference on Saturday afternoon. “We have 3,000 firefighters and emergency services personnel out there dealing with the fires, a bad weather day.”
Catastrophic is the highest fire danger rating and is the equivalent of the conditions before the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria. Saturday was only the second time that greater Sydney had catastrophic conditions declared.
As conditions worsened, major roads, including sections of the Princes Highway, Hume Highway and Greater Highway were closed during the day, with police warning people to stay off the roads despite the Christmas holiday rush. Train services on rail lines west of Sydney were also delayed and cancelled.
By 4.30pm, seven fires in NSW were burning at emergency, including the more than 400,000-hectare Gospers Mountain mega-fire, and the Green Wattle Creek fire, where two firefighters died on Thursday when their truck overturned.
The fire service said this would lead to increasingly dangerous fire conditions. Such storms, known as pyroCB, can produce embers hot enough to spark new fires 30km from the main fire.
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