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NSW and Victoria fires live: man found dead in Australia bushfires and hundreds of homes feared destroyed – latest updates
NSW and Victoria fires live: three more deaths confirmed in Australia bushfires and hundreds of homes destroyed – latest updates
(32 minutes later)
East Gippsland fires claim homes in Buchan, Sarsfield and Mallacoota, and reports of up to 50 properties lost in Conjola Park in New South Wales
East Gippsland fires claim homes in Buchan, Sarsfield and Mallacoota, and 176 properties lost on New South Wales south coast. Follow live news and latest updates
The NSW RFS is giving an update on today’s fires:
Bega MP Andrew Constance, who was briefly unaccounted for yesterday after defending his home from fires, has urged people to not return to their homes until it is judged safe.
For a recap of the day’s events, you can head here:
The NSW RFS commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons, says the lack of communication is making it difficult for authorities to determine who is still missing.
And neither will images like this:
He says people need to brace themselves for more confirmed deaths.
I don’t think these images are going to leave anyone’s minds anytime soon:
This conversation will not, and can’t be, stopped:
Firefighters are taking advantage of the slightly cooler conditions to try and get ahead of what is coming on Saturday - these are some of the backburning operations underway at the moment.
Power in some of those NSW south coast areas is likely to remain out for some time to come.
There are a lot of people desperately trying to get information – or let loved ones know they are OK. By the by – Telstra’s contract to run Australia’s payphone network, ends this year.
From AAP:
The report of Mick Roberts’ death brings the fire death toll, since Monday, to four.
The NSW police deputy commissioner, Gary Worboys, on the deaths:
Twelve people have lost their lives this season, including three RFS volunteers.
AAP has this update on Tasmania:
Almost 1,000 homes have been lost since July, when the fires began.
A look at what happened in Victoria yesterday:
From Townsville to Victoria:
Rob Rogers on whether or not there is enough resources:
More tragic news – from AAP:
And on the question of whether there is much more to burn, the RFS deputy commissioner, Rob Rogers, says:
Speaking of Australia and climate change, David Littleproud doubled down on that on ABC AM radio this morning.
Deputy NSW RFS commissioner Rob Rogers:
Kim Landers: After all of this, we’ve seen incident controller, after incident controller, and plenty of experts say that they have seen nothing like this before. Do you acknowledge that the federal government now has to do more about climate change?
Authorities said the majority of the south coast fires were the result of ‘natural’ activity – like lightning. They have not heard of any deliberately lit fires in that area. All the main ones have been started by lightning.
David Littleproud: Well, we are and continue to, we’ve made our commitments, internationally and we intend to [keep them].
I think that brings the total number of deaths, since the season began, to 15.
Landers: You’ve made those commitments internationally, I know the government says it will live up to those commitments, but there are a lot of people saying more needs to be done, something more than just meeting those commitments.
Littleproud: That’s what we will have to do to meet those commitments and we continue to make those endeavours and that is what we continue to look to, to actually supplement renewable energies, we have given subsidies to those to get them up to a point, to get them competitive from a market prospective, so the reality is the government continues to work through it.
All industries, even in agriculture, which equates to 17% of reductions of emissions are looking to get to carbon neutrality by 2030 themselves, so industry and government are working together to ensure we do our bit.
Landers: Do you think the public is going to think that is enough though?
Littleproud: It’s not just ... it is also important, it would be unrealistic to think Australia can do it by ourselves.
We are leading by example and we expect the rest of the world to come with us, because we are 1.3% of emissions and we expect the rest of the world to do their bit as well, because if we all work globally together – and we are working globally in these fires, we have US firefighters, Canadian, New Zealanders.
If we work together, collaboratively as a world community, then we will be able to meet our emissions reduction targets as a globe, not just Australia.
AAP has an update on what is happening in Western Australia at the moment:
