/ 11 January 2005

Eight die as bushfires sweep Australia

At least eight people, including two children, died as bushfires fanned by searing temperatures and high winds raged through parts of South Australia state on Tuesday, threatening towns and destroying properties.

Police said eight people have been confirmed killed, but a number of others are still unaccounted for and the toll could rise. At least one firefighter was taken to hospital suffering from bad burns.

An adult and two children died as the fire swept a farming property near the tiny township of Wanilla on South Australia’s rugged Eyre Peninsula.

Two adults died nearby as the car in which they are believed to have been travelling was engulfed by flames, and another three people were found burned to death in a vehicle near the seaside township of Poonidie near Port Lincoln.

”The latest death toll has reached eight,” police Chief Inspector Malcolm Schluter said.

”We still have a number of people who are unaccounted for and we are endeavouring to establish their whereabouts … but at this stage they are listed as missing.”

He said there is significant property damage across the entire fire path, but police are unable to say how many buildings have been destroyed.

A major fire burning along a front of several kilometres on the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula broke out on Tuesday morning. Another was burning near Mount Osmond, an outlying suburb of the state capital, Adelaide.

Neither had been brought under control by late on Tuesday, but the fire authorities said they are confident the blazes could be controlled on Wednesday morning following an easing of weather conditions.

The worst possible conditions were created by strong, gusting winds and temperatures that topped 44 degrees Celsius in some parts of South Australia, already tinder-dry after years of severe drought.

In Adelaide, the temperature rose on Tuesday above 41 degrees.

”There is no firefighting force in the world that can stop the fire in the conditions we experienced today,” Country Fire Service spokesperson Simon Vogel said.

Schluter said the fire in the lower Eyre Peninsula, buffeted by strong winds, raced about 13 to 15 kilometres during the day.

”It was a hopeless situation for the many, many firefighters who have come to the district to try and help,” Schluter told ABC radio. ”It was just too much for them because of the horrendous climatic conditions today.

”The fire just swept right across and burnt property, machinery, farmhouses as it went through.

”A lot of these little towns only have, say, 75 to 100 residents and a lot of those stayed at home in an endeavour to try and defend their properties. Some were faced with … an impossible task and they had to flee.”

The Eyre Peninsula blaze was the most severe of numerous bushfires reported throughout the state, including two separate fires that forced the closure of highways on Adelaide’s southern and south-eastern outskirts.

Police said residents of Louth Bay were forced to evacuate the township and seek refuge on a beach. There were reports the fire had destroyed most of the houses and properties in nearby North Shields.

State Emergency Service deputy chief officer Stuart Macleod said about six residents who took to the sea after flames threatened North Shields have been rescued.

Other fires were reported in South Australia’s south-east, an area in which Australia’s worst bushfires, the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires, claimed 28 lives.

A further 47 people died in the 1983 fires in neighbouring Victoria state. Police and firefighters then deployed water bombers and numerous firefighting units in a bid to control the blazes. — Sapa-AFP