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Australia fires live: one dead in New South Wales bushfires – latest updates
Australia fires live: one dead in NSW and six missing in Victoria in Australian bushfires – latest updates
(32 minutes later)
The RFS commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons, says he was disappointed to learn about PM’s announcement to deploy army reservists through the media. Follow all today’s live news and latest updates
NSW RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons says he was frustrated to learn of ADF deployment from the media. Follow all today’s live news and latest updates
Shane Fitzsimmons on the two fires still at emergency alert levesl:
For many areas, February is the worst month of the fire season. We have a long, long way to go this summer.
NSW RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons explains a little bit more about what firefighters were dealing with yesterday:
Campbell Fuller of the Insurance Council of Australia has given an indication of just how much property damage has been done so far:
A recovery coordinator has been appointed for southern NSW (there is also one in the north)
Andrew Crisp, the Victorian emergency commissioner, has given the ABC a very quick update on what his state is facing today:
Gladys Berejiklian
The Australia Defence Association is a non-partisan organisation:
Gladys Berejiklian says NSW police have confirmed one person died from a heart attack overnight during the Batlow fire.
Piers Morgan is a conservative commentator:
The good news is no one is currently unaccounted for in NSW.
And you know who Kevin Rudd is (although I am trying to imagine the response if he did this):
The light here is not because of nearby fires – it is the sunlight coming through the smoke.
Anthony Albanese will hold a press conference at 11am.
The duke and duchess of Cambridge have posted about the fires on their official instagram account to their 10.6m followers.
He is in Melbourne today.
They have recently announced a plan to focus on climate change.
Craig Emerson is also on the ABC talking the response and the ad:
You can hear what Shane Fitzsimmons had to say to the Today show here:
To be fair, they did delete the “donate” to the Liberal party button, but not before it was spotted and spread across social media.
Shane Fitzsimmons and the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, are about to hold a press conference, having just received a morning briefing.
That leads to this to and fro:
Relations between the NSW Coalition government and the Morrison Coalition government seem a little strained at the moment. In fact, it seems like Scott Morrison is getting along better with the Victorian Labor premier, Daniel Andrews, at the moment.
Georgina Downer: It’s incumbent on the government to get out the message what they’re doing to help.
Instagram influencer and comedian Celeste Barber’s fundraiser for the NSW RFS has surpassed $16m.
ABC host: Why? It wasn’t just informative. It wasn’t telling them important emergency information. It was promoting the government’s response.
The prime minister’s office has responded to Shane Fitzsimmons’s “disappointment”.
Downer: That’s your interpretation.
There are a number of major Victorian roads which are still closed:
She does later admit though that the government’s response has been “slower” than some people would have liked.
The latest update from VicRoads shows:
For some reason, Georgina Downer is on the ABC, defending the prime minister’s decision to release an ad in the middle of the fire crisis:
Hume Freeway is closed southbound and being diverted through Euroa back to the freeway.
Meanwhile, in Cooma, residents also had to deal with flooding, after a 4.5 million litre tank burst. From AAP:
Northbound traffic of the Hume Freeway is now open. The Princes Highway is closed between Old Bunga Road (Lakes Entrance) and the New South Wales border in East Gippsland.
A large water tank has burst in a southern NSW town, flooding streets and homes and injuring a woman.Residents of Cooma, south of Canberra, began raising the alarm about 9.15pm on Saturday, with some reporting water had flowed through their homes.Police said a woman suffered minor injuries after water entered her home and knocked her to the ground.Some cars were damaged, including one that was swept 800m down a road and into a truck.
If travelling, please be vigilant in smoky conditions and use your headlights to be seen.
In case there are still some people down the back who missed that, this is not business as usual. By any measure.
Shane Fitzsimmons, the NSW RFS commissioner who has steered the state through one of the worst fire crisis the country has ever seen, gave a very measured – but very telling – interview to the Nine network’s Today Show.
The NSW premier doubles down on that point:
Asked about the additional ADF deployment, he had this to say:
Gladys Berejiklian gets very real here as she talks about exactly what the state is facing:
The announcement came as the NSW RFS were dealing with mass evacuations of southern NSW, and an almost record-breaking number of emergency fire warnings.
Gladys Berejiklian also steps up to the microphone to reassure people that NSW citizens “are at the heart of everything we do”.
The Kangaroo Island fire, which has so far claimed two lives, a father and son, is also still burning.
She says that the prime minister did call her ahead of the announcement and she was “pleased to take the call and welcomed the additional support”.
About a third of the island has been ravaged. That’s about 150,000ha. At least one resort has been destroyed, but it is still too dangerous to get too much of an idea of what else has been lost.
Shane Fitzsimmons finished that answer with this:
And then we hear this from the NSW RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons. He learned of the prime minister’s decision to send in more ADF resources from the media announcement:
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has done an exclusive interview with the Sunday News Corp papers.
Here is some of what he had to say.
On the decision to provide resources without being asked by the states, he said it became “palpably clear” the commonwealth needed to step in:
“We have spent three to four months operating under … the national set of arrangements the states and territories recommended and wanted.
“Now I have said, ‘We are doing this.’ ”
And on the criticisms of his leadership, including the forced handshakes:
And on why he is not taking any of the criticism personally:
People in Canberra have woken up to a yellow-brown sky and the world’s worst air quality again.
More than 900,000ha has been overrun by flames in Victoria, with about 110 properties and 220 outbuildings razed so far.
More than 70 new fires were sparked in Victoria in the 24 hours to 6pm on Saturday.
Dozens of fires were burning in Victoria early on Sunday, 13 of which were subject to emergency warnings, the highest alert level.
Six people remain missing in the East Gippsland blazes, on top of two confirmed dead.
The mercury is forecast to peak in the early 20s in East Gippsland, with rainfall of about 20ml expected later in the day. In the north-east, temperatures could hit the late 20s in some parts, with some rainfall – albeit likely less than 5ml – expected. This will bring some relief to firefighters but Daniel Andrews has warned Victorians to remain vigilant.
Merimbula in the far south coast is the main evacuation zone for the surrounding areas, including Eden.
