A father and son have died in fires burning on NSW’s south coast, a day after a volunteer firefighter died in a truck crash involving a “fire tornado.”
The two men died on Tuesday in Cobargo, to the west of Bermagui. The township has been aflame for much of the day, with multiple buildings on the main street destroyed. The town was evacuated earlier in the day.
RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons on Tuesday confirmed that dozens of homes and properties had been destroyed in Cobargo, and NSW Police deputy commissioner Gary Worboys confirmed the two deaths.
A third person in remote Belowra is missing and feared dead.
“Police have been in the last few hours able to get into Cobargo, into this house that’s just west of Cobargo, and have unfortunately found two men in there deceased … that’s of course a tragedy,” Worboys told reporters.
The fire affecting Cobargo is the Badja Forest Road fire near Cooma, which rapidly moved eastward on Tuesday, having been predicted as a major threat along with bushfires in the Snowy Valleys area.
The RFS said significant damage had also been wrought in the towns of Fishermans Paradise, Broulee and Mogo, which is home to a popular zoo. The Illawarra Mercury reported that all animals are safe so far, being looked after by staff.
In larger townships, residents have evacuated to the beach in Batemans Bay as the Clyde Mountain blaze affects homes amid a southerly. Massive traffic queues to escape the township have built on Beach Road, houses have reportedly been destroyed and embers are affecting the area.
Due to the persistent 226,000-hectare Currowan blaze in the Shoalhaven, those in Ulladulla and south of Nowra have been told it’s too late to leave.
Some 17,000 Endeavour Energy customers on the south coast are powerless.
“The southerly change is also starting to make its way through the southern areas of the state, which turns these fires that are spreading in an easterly or southeasterly direction and (starts) to spread them in a northerly direction, which is posing additional threat,” Fitzsimmons said.
Almost 100 blazes continue to burn across NSW, with 60 uncontained and eight on Tuesday at “emergency” level. At least 2200 firefighters are working across NSW fire grounds, but aircraft use has been limited.
The volunteer firefighter who died when his truck flipped amid a “fire tornado” at a NSW-Victoria border town was an expectant father.
Samuel McPaul died on Monday just before 6pm when the fire truck he was travelling in crashed at Jingellic, about 110km east of Albury in NSW.
Fitzsimmons on Tuesday said the 10-tonne truck was hit by winds so extreme at the 26,000-hectare Green Valley fire that it flipped on its roof.
The 28-year-old mechanic, who was expecting his first child in May with his wife Megan who he married last year, died at the scene.
Two male colleagues in the fire truck—aged 39 and 52—were injured and taken to hospital, the former in a serious condition.
A command vehicle was also blown over, injuring one other firefighter.
On the same fire ground, two firefighters suffered burns to their faces and airways and were airlifted to Concord Hospital.
“Crews described what they experienced as truly horrific, an extraordinary wind event, describing it as a fire tornado or the collapse of a pyro-convective column that had formed above the main fire front,” Fitzsimmons said.
“That’s resulted in cyclonic-type winds that have moved across the fire ground and has literally lifted up a 10 or 12-tonne fire truck.”
McPaul is the third NSW volunteer firefighter to die this bushfire season. Geoffrey Keaton, 32, and Andrew O’Dwyer, 36, died on Dec. 19 when a tree hit their tanker as they were travelling southwest of Sydney.
