New South Wales: Man dies as over 100 wildfires rage

AT LEAST one person has died as more than 100 wildfires continued to raged across New South Wales, officials said yesterday.

At Winmalee, New South Wales, Leanne Brown and her mother, Rosemary Booth, contemplate their ruined home. Picture: Getty

The fires destroyed dozens of houses and forced hundreds from their homes as Australia’s annual fire season got off to an unusually early start.

Milder conditions were helping firefighters after unseasonably hot temperatures in the area and strong winds fanned flames across the parched landscape and threatened towns surrounding Sydney.

The number of fires in the state dropped from more than 100 overnight to 89, burning across 375 square miles. However, 25 of the fires last night continued to burn out of control, said Rural Fire Service spokesman Matt Sun.

Eighty-one homes were destroyed and another 37 damaged, the fire service said, with the number expected to rise as assessment teams and police move deeper into the destruction zone.

Roads and schools in the worst-hit areas were closed and officials were searching the rubble for survivors and victims.

Prime minister Tony Abbott said hundreds of homes may have been destroyed, but the exact number was not known.

“I know some information that’s been passed to me that just in one street, there were 40 homes lost,” fire service deputy commissioner Rob Rogers said.

Blue Mountains mayor Mark Greenhill visited the devastated village of Winmalee, on Sydney’s western fringe, where some streets were almost entirely razed.

“It’s been an awful 24 hours for the Blue Mountains,” he said. “We’ve lost possibly scores of homes.”

The fire service said a 63-year-old man had a fatal heart attack while he was fighting a fire at his home at Lake Munmorah, north of Sydney.

He has been named as Walter Linder.

Firefighters had evacuated most of the residents and their horses from the area, but a few decided to stay to protect their homes, neighbour Sue Cartwright said.

Mr Linder and a friend tried to defend their property with buckets of water, she said.

The two men split up at one point during the battle and Mr Linder’s friend later found him lying on the ground with no pulse, she added.

“It’s pretty scary at the moment,” she said. “I’m surprised that more lives haven’t been lost considering the scale of it.”

Two people suffering smoke inhalation were in intensive care at Sydney’s Concord Hospital yesterday, hospital spokeswoman Kate Benson said. Three firefighters were treated for burns.

Wildfires are common in Australia, though not usually until the summer, which begins in December. This year’s unusually dry winter and hotter than average spring have led to perfect fire conditions.

“We’re not called the land of droughts and flooding rains – the sunburnt country – for nothing,” the prime minister told reporters in Winmalee.

In February 2009, wildfires killed 173 people and destroyed more than 2,000 homes in Victoria state.

Temperatures west of Sydney hovered around 23C yesterday – about 10C cooler than on Thursday. Gentle breezes had replaced strong winds.

“It’s calmed down a lot but make no mistake: We’ve got thousands of kilometres of fire front that we are faced with trying to deal with,” said Mr Rogers. “This is absolutely far from being over.”