Savage bush fires engulf Sydney
Australia’s worst bush fires in a generation raged out of control around Sydney today, claiming the life of a second elderly man as winds pushed the towering flames closer to the city’s affluent northern suburbs.
Eighteen homes have been lost since the fires erupted two days ago and 173,000 acres of bush land devoured by 79 fires burning across New South Wales state.
An 18-year-old student charged with starting one of the fires was due in court today. He faces a maximum 14-year sentence if convicted. Other blazes are believed to have been started by people tossing cigarette ends out of car windows.
Early today, officials said a drop in temperatures to around 23 degrees Celsius (73.4 Fahrenheit) was easing conditions after days of soaring temperatures amid hot, dry Outback winds, but as winds picked up in the afternoon, so did the fires’ ferocity.
Rural Fire Service spokesman John Winter said firefighters saved hundreds of homes north, south and west of Sydney, Australia’s most populous city.
“But the fire is now starting to move again, ... we’re seeing the fire picking up and burning towards property,” he said, adding that an unknown number of homes in north western Sydney caught fire today.
The fires claimed their second casualty with police discovering the body of a 71-year-old man in north western Sydney. Officers tried to reach him but were beaten back by flames. A 73-year-old man died of a heart attack on Wednesday night.
One home was destroyed yesterday in the Blue Mountains, a sprawling national park 55 miles west of Sydney and hundreds of people were evacuated.
Two more homes were razed in the north western suburbs as the inferno spread into a national park with rugged and inaccessible bush near some of Sydney’s most affluent northern beachside suburbs.
“That has caused some significant problems because now we are going to have to chance down into the bush areas to try and contain that fire,” Winter told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio.
More than 4,500 firefighters were on the ground beating back the flames with the help of water-bombing aircraft and homeowners armed with hoses, buckets and wet towels.
“The immediate environs of Sydney have probably not faced a threat like this for 20 to 30 years,” New South Wales state Rural Fire Service Commissioner Phil Koperberg said Thursday. “We’re going to be in trouble in New South Wales until it rains.”
Firefighters have been warning for months that Sydney faced a devastating bush fire season over the hot Southern Hemisphere summer. The city and much of New South Wales state has been in the grip of a drought for months.
Bob Crowley, who has lived in Dural, north west Sydney, for 15 years, watched in horror and amazement as flames swept over his home Thursday but left it virtually unscathed.
“All of a sudden the wind blew a big fire storm over the top. Everyone was running for their lives. We are just lucky the wind changed and saved us,” he said. “My skin was burning as I was running. I have never been scared in my life like that.”
Prime minister John Howard offered the nation’s defence forces to help battle the blazes, and donated a million Australian dollars (€559,750) to a bush fire appeal set up by the New South Wales government to bail out people who lose their homes.
