South Australia bushfires: storms threaten more outbreaks as 38 homes are lost
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Version 0 of 1. Authorities in South Australia are “more confident” of containing the huge bushfire raging in the state despite forecasts of thunderstorms on Wednesday that could spark more fires. As many as 38 homes have been destroyed in a 12,000 hectare blaze that has been burning in the hills north of Adelaide, South Australia, since Friday. Assessment teams for South Australian police completed their first sweep of the Sampson Flat fire ground in the Mount Lofty Ranges on Tuesday and found 167 buildings that were destroyed or had sustained major damage. Of those, 38 were homes, four were businesses and the remaining 124 were sheds or outbuildings. It’s the most destructive fire in South Australia since 2003, when a bushfire on the Eyre Peninsula destroyed 93 homes, and has been described as the worst since the 1989 Ash Wednesday fires that killed 75 people across South Australia and Victoria. Premier Jay Weatherill told reporters in Adelaide on Tuesday that it could take some time to notify all those whose homes were lost, because in some cases the only identifying information authorities had was the land title. He urged residents who evacuated a home in the area to wait until they received formal notification and not to go on to the fire ground themselves. “We don’t want people to find out about that by travelling to the fire ground or, even worse, to see it on the media,” he said. Two people are in hospital as a result of injuries suffered in the bushfire. One of those people succumbed to exhaustion, while the other is in a serious condition after being hit by a falling tree while trying to repair a fence. Weatherill said the South Australian ambulance aervice treated 134 people for bushfire-related injuries – mostly smoke inhalation and dehydration – including 29 firefighters. Just 23 people were taken to hospital and 21 were discharged a short time later. South Australian Country Fire Service chief officer Greg Nettleton said that despite “significant progress” made in building containment lines around the 238km outer perimeter to make the fire safe, it was too early to claim “total victory”. He said unstable burnt trees on the fire ground still posed a risk. “We have to remind people, those who are working in the and those who come back to the area, that we still have the problem of falling trees,” he said. “And it would be too early to claim victory until such a time as all those trees have fallen and nobody has been struck.” Officers from the Department of Primary Industries and the RSPCA began searching properties affected by the Sampson Flat fire on Tuesday, and located 1,000 sheep, of which 91 were killed or had to be destroyed. They also found 440 cattle, of which 21 did not survive. Wildlife was also affected. Weatherill said it was impossible to say the full extent of losses among wildlife, but did say that one koala had to be euthanaised and another was at a veterinary hospital. Wildlife carers Gregg and Jo Morris told the Advertiser they returned to their Humbug Scrub home to find several of the 40 kangaroos they were caring for had died. Theirs was one of the homes destroyed. Nettleton said about 480 firefighters working on the fire on Tuesday, supported by 100 trucks and 31 water-bombing planes, made “significant progress” in managing hot spots among the fire’s edge and unburnt areas within the fire, which could flare up. The temperature in the Adelaide Hills reached 38C on Tuesday, the hottest since the fire began on Friday, and is expected to reach the same temperature on Wednesday, with a fire danger rating of very high. Nettlefold said he was “increasingly confident that tomorrow is posing a lesser threat than it was yesterday”, but Weatherill warned the threat had not yet passed. A bushfire watch and act alert remains in place for the fire. In Victoria, residents near Balmoral, 331km west of Melbourne, remain on high alert over a bushfire burning that has breached its north-eastern perimeter and is travelling towards properties on Maggies Lane. That fire escaped containment lines and threatened properties on Monday night, prompting an emergency warning. Lives and homes could be in danger from two out-of-control bushfires north of Perth. A watch and act alert has been issued for residents near the northern part of the Bindoon training area, Bindoon-Dewars Pool Road and Old Plains Road in the shire of Toodyay and the shire of Victoria Plains. And electiricity provider Western Power is investigating what caused a power pole to “spark” on Monday, sparking a bushfire that destroyed a $1.2m luxury home and accommodation villa at Yallingup in Western Australia’s south-west. The West Australian says that a man who lives near the property heard a “pop” and saw a plume of smoke coming from the power pole before the fire started. |