Thread by @MesMitch

Australia fires: nine dead and hundreds of properties destroyed, with worse to come😰😢
Residents in Victoria and New South Wales count terrible cost during brief reprieve from disaster that has sent smoke as far as New Zealand

Nine people are confirmed dead, with four still missing, and more than 200 properties have been lost since Christmas Day in Australia’s catastrophic bushfires.😰

On Wednesday afternoon, authorities in New South Wales and Victoria said another five people were confirmed dead, and another man presumed dead. They warned the death toll was likely to continue to rise.😰

At Malua Bay, on the NSW south coast, survivors spoke of how 1,000 people spent the night on the beach in a bid to seek shelter from the flames.

In NSW, police have now confirmed deaths at Lake Conjola, Yatte Yattah, Sussex Inlet and Coolagolite. Authorities been unable to reach a property at Belowra in NSW where a 72-year-old man is presumed dead.😢

As relatively calm conditions set in on Wednesday, the sheer scale of the fire emergency was laid bare. People returned to find their homes damaged 😰or destroyed. Thick smoke was visible more than 2,000km away, on the south island of New Zealand.😰😢

Authorities confirmed 176 homes have been lost on the NSW south coast; 89 in Conjola Park, 40 at Malua Bay and 15 in Rosedale. Another 50 properties have been destroyed in Victoria since Sunday. It is expected the final figures may be much higher.😔😢

While most of the destruction occurred on Tuesday, the ferocity of the fires meant many people were unable to find out basic information until New Year’s Day. Electricity and communications lines were cut for extended periods in many areas. Roads in and out of towns remain closed

The disaster has brought out stories of community and efforts to battle on in the face of unprecedented adversity in Victoria and NSW. In Bairnsdale, donations flooded in for those who had lost everything, who even then were reluctant to accept help.

“We had a couple with three kids here, and he [the father] started crying,” said helper Wendy McPhan. “I said, ‘here’s a $300 voucher for Woolies,’ and he said ‘no, I can’t take that, there’s people worse off.’😔

“I said: ‘Mate, you have lost everything. You have lost your house. There is no one worse off.’”😢

Many people are now concerned they might not be able to escape affected areas for days; a fear compounded by forecasts that the calm weather on Wednesday is but a brief reprieve.😰

Forecasters predict very hot and windy conditions for South Australia on Friday and dangerous bushfire conditions for eastern Victoria and New South Wales on Saturday, with temperatures again set to reach into the mid-40s.😰😢

“We are assuming that on Saturday weather conditions will be at least as bad as what they were yesterday,” the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said. “That is something all of us have to brace ourselves for.”😢

The Australian Defence Force has been deployed to attempt to evacuate residents from isolated communities by air or sea, and drop off supplies. A ship with supplies for two weeks – 1.6 tonnes of water, food, and 30,000 litres of fuel – has already left Melbourne.

Victorian premier Andrews, on a visit to Bairnsdale on Wednesday, said: “I don’t know that we’ve ever done this before … we’ve got choppers taking 90 firefighters out of the Mallacoota area, they can’t be removed any other way – we’re essentially doing a shift change by the air

The three major fires in Victoria’s East Gippsland region now cover about 500,000 hectares and have “essentially combined into one”, state emergency services commissioner Andrew Crisp said.

On Wednesday afternoon two fires burning on Kangaroo Island in South Australia merged, and firefighters have warned it could burn for weeks. Forecast northerly winds could push the fire towards the Flinders Chase national park.😢😔

Since the start of July, 15 people have been killed by the bushfires and more than 1,000 homes lost.😰😔

The nature and scale of this bushfire season in Australia is unprecedented. Scientists have cited the lack of moisture in the landscape – following years of drought – as a key reason the fires have been so severe.

Intense heat, dry conditions and strong winds have created conditions where the fire risk is considered extreme or catastrophic.😰

Yesterday, residents in the isolated community of Cann River were expressing concern about food shortages and other supply issues. Some told media they felt they were being forgotten.

The town is along the Princes Highway between Orbost and Mallacoota and has been cut off due to the fires.

Red Cross packages will be dropped in the town by air today.

Tourists near NSW and Victoria bushfires told to leave 😥

The warming of our planet – and the changes in climate associated with it – are due to the fossil fuels we’re burning: oil, whether at midnight or any other hour of the day, natural gas, and the biggest culprit of all, coal. That’s not complicated either.

When we mine for coal, like the controversial planned Adani coalmine, which would more than double Australia’s coal-based carbon emissions, we are literally mining away at our blue skies. The Adani coalmine could rightly be renamed the Blue Sky mine.😥😔

In Australia, beds are burning. So are entire towns, irreplaceable forests and endangered and precious animal species such as the koala (arguably the world’s only living plush toy) are perishing in massive numbers due to the unprecedented bushfires.😥

The continent of Australia is figuratively – and in some sense literally – on fire.😥

Yet the prime minister, Scott Morrison, appears remarkably indifferent to the climate emergency Australia is suffering through,

having chosen to vacation in Hawaii as Australians are left to contend with unprecedented heat and bushfires.😪

Australians need only wake up in the morning, turn on the television, read the newspaper or look out the window to see what is increasingly obvious to many –

for Australia, dangerous climate change is already here. It’s simply a matter of how much worse we’re willing to allow it to get.😥😪

Australia is experiencing a climate emergency. It is literally burning. It needs leadership that is able to recognise that and act. And it needs voters to hold politicians accountable at the ballot box.

Australians must vote out fossil-fuelled politicians who have chosen to be part of the problem and vote in climate champions who are willing to solve it.😥😪

Quick update on the Woolworths stores in the South Coast.

Narooma and Bermagui stores are closed, but all others are still open. EFTPOS is down in the Batemans Bay store, so you will need cash for that.

Stock is said to be good, although the highway closure between Ulladulla and Nowra could impact some stores, as trucks are unable to replinish supplies, but that is being closely monitored. Woolworths is also working with the Salvation Army to supply the evacuations centres -

two trucks are on their way to the region just for that.

From a spokesperson:

“We understand it’s an anxious time and thank customers for their patience as we manage the increased demand and the road closures.

We’d also like to thank our team for their continued support in keeping stores operating and for their ongoing help in supporting their local community.

We’re also working closely with our partner the Salvation

Army, with two truckloads of essential supplies currently being loaded to head to the evacuation centres they are managing in the regions.”

It is small fry given what else is going on, but the air quality in Canberra continues to be hazardous. Masks and air purifiers are sold out, with retailers unable to tell people when new stock will come in.

Maureen O’Halloran is the manager of the Caiguna Roadhouse, which is at the eastern edge of the Eyre Highway roadblock.

She told 6PR that 120 people were booked at the roadhouse and sheltering out back and another 60-70 trucks and cars were parked on the road verge out the front

They are running out of essential supplies.

“We ran out of toilet paper so that’s why they had to come in yesterday, especially for hygienic purposes,” O’Halloran told Perth radio station 6PR on Thursday.

“It is draining our basic supplies because we wouldn’t have this many people using our water. We don’t have rain here so we actually make our water here, so that desalination plant is really really getting smashed at the moment.”

Travellers have been urged to avoid the Eyre Highway, the main road from the east coast to Western Australia, which has been closed due to bushfires since Christmas and is not expected to open until next week.

All four roads into the WA town of Norseman have been cut off by bushfire since Christmas Day, and the fire danger rating for the region on Thursday is catastrophic.

But Dundas shire president Laurene Bonza stressed that they were not as badly affected as communities in the eastern states.

“The whole country is on fire,” she said. “It’s a disaster of epic proportions.”

Bonza urged people not to attempt to travel on the Eyre Highway, reminding visitors that the names on the map along the Eyre Highway are just roadhouses with limited supplies, not towns that can accommodate a large number of visitors.

NSW RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons who is continuing to show just absolute outstanding leadership, says the state of emergency is necessary.

Unfortunately we’ve seen this afternoon fire activity flare up in the Shoalhaven area which has impacted the Princes Highway again,

near the Sussex Inlet Road and Bendalong Road area.

There is a bit of fire activity there at the moment which we’re hoping to have wrapped up in the next few hours to again provide clear passage to that part of the road.

We’re all appreciative collectively of the decisions and

patience taken by people down the south coast.

We are hoping to clear the disruption to the Princes Highway over the coming hours.

So please be patient.

And working with police, particularly, and the RMS when it is safe to do so.

It is heavily clogged with smoke and fire is

burning on the edge of the road and there is backburning operations going on right on the edge of the road as we speak.

This is not about waiting to clear the road and make it safe from trees and power poles.

This is about active fire that is coming back in on the

Princes Highway

As soon as we have that under control, it is a stretch of only about six or 7km but it is just a risk that’s too great to allow cars to be traversing that part of the road.

The warning, the alert and the messaging to go out and ask people not to be in these at

risk areas is to extend beyond the far south coast.

At the moment we’re talking from Batemans Bay down to the Victorian border.

Fire authorities are preparing for the worst case scenario on Saturday, after what happened on Tuesday.

Last New Year’s Eve, what we identified and the Premier talked about, it was very much that we saw extraordinary fire behaviour with fires, five of them burning at the

emergency warning alert level, from about 8:00am or earlier in the morning.

Those fires exceeded all the manual predictions and all the computer-based predictions for what was to be the expected fire spread.

As we do routinely, we’ve re-run a number of those

models and forecasts and those fires have spread at the absolute worst-case scenario which typically is not what happens when it plays out on the ground.

We are applying that technology given the conditions on Saturday are likely to be experienced will be worse than

New Year’s Eve and a lot of those areas in the south-east quad rant of the state have the potential to be impacted and impacted very heavily with the conditions forecast for Saturday.

Saturday sounds like absolute hell for everyone in the fire zone.

Shane Fitzsimmons:

We’re expecting temperatures on Saturday into the low- to mid-40s.

Very hot, dry air coming out of the centre of Australia which means humidity will be particularly low.

The winds will start very much strengthening up from the north, north-west and swinging around more to the west throughout the day and those wind strengths particularly across the ranges will be coming in at 40, 50, 60km/h and gusting at 70km/h.

That will result in severe danger ratings, but coming up towards the central ranges some widespread extreme fire danger which is present some real challenges for fire behaviour and fire spread across that landscape.

There will be a southerly change moving through the state

on Saturday but at this stage it’s not forecast to start moving through the state of New South Wales, the south-east corner of the state down around Eden, for example, it’s not expected to start moving into that area until about 3:00pm in the afternoon, and then it’ll be

a fairly slow movement up the coast and probably not hit an area like Sydney until about midnight.

The RFS commissioner continues:

So we’re going to have a very long, difficult day of hot, dry winds, dominating out of the north, north-west before a southerly change emits.

Pretty volatile stretch along the coastal stretch like we saw on New Year’s Eve with the wind strengths,

gusting particularly 70, 80km/h or more in some parts.

It is going to be a very dangerous day. It’s going to be a very difficult day.

Which is why we’re ensuring the highest available orders and arrangements, instruments, for the state of New South Wales are in effect.

Another precautionary measure we’re taking for the next few days is to ensure there are state wide total fire bans in place for tomorrow and Saturday.

That will be reviewed post Saturday depending on how fire reacts and how fire spreads and what sort of damage is occasioned as a result of the fire behaviour on Saturday.

Where are fire authorties worried about? Pretty much everywhere at this point.

Shane Fitzsimmons:

We are focusing very much on south-eastern quadrant of New South Wales but not at the exclusion of all these other fires we have across the state.

We still have 113 fires burning across New South Wales.

We have a large fire up near the Kurrajong Heights area.

Crews have been working on that all day and are gaining the upperhand.

That containment will be tenuous as they head into the weekend.

They’ll continue strengthening that containment.

The last thing we want is an outbreak of that fire complex and heading into communities like the Blue Mountains or into the Kurrajong region and into north Western Sydney, for example.

We have the fire around the Green Wattle Creek fire where it’s burning effectively north of Mittagong and burning up to Wombeyancaves.

There is a fire burning on the western side of Warragamba dam there. They will continue to fight that fire while

favourable weather conditions present. But fighting that fire will be tenuous at best.

...The Greater Sydney environment, Illawarra, Shoalhaven and even potential into the Greater Hunter, we have a

very large area that will see potentially high level fire danger ratings set in across New South Wales.

On how the evacuations are going today, Gladys Berejiklian says things are going as well as can be expected:

I want to reiterate that patience, whether it’s local or tourists wanting to get back home, the patience and neighbourly support has been amazing.

I want to thank everybody for that. I’m relieved to note the power shortages experienced on New Year’s Day are still there but not as severe as they were. Many people have had power restored.

That means people can take safe refuge with friends and relatives and people can access

those basic supplies they weren’t able to do so a few days earlier.

I also saw, having traveled on and in the vicinity of local roads, the danger that trees, that burnt-out trees are posing, burnt-out telegraph poles are opposing.

I saw for myself things that were literally

swaying and ready to come down, we need to make sure that nobody is injured, or worse, because of things coming down when they’re using roads.

That’s why it’s important for us to be cautious and to be safe. We know that can result in frustration for people but

I’d much rather have people frustrated and get home safely than not feel frustrate and have themselves or a loved one experience a serious injury or worse.

That’s why we need to be cautious at these times.

I want to thank in particular police, fire rescue personnel

who have made sure that where people can have access to main roads, that they can let them through even monitoring them closely, with only letting a few cars through at a time.

We encourage people to exercise caution. We do appreciate that for some, it is difficult to access supplies but it’s much easier than what it was yesterday and the day before.

The Victorian fires are also worrying the NSW RFS.

There are a number of fires burning south of the border. Obviously the one fire that we had over near Jingelic, east of Albury there, that fire has burnt extensively down in a south-easterly direction towards Victoria,

that’s posing a huge threat to the high country areas.

We’re working closely with our Victorian colleagues for the fire behaviour and movement as to the south-east corner of our state and the north-east corner of Victoria. We’re working very closely together with that.

Australia fires: tens of thousands stranded while attempting to flee
Visitors who were told to evacuate a vast area along the NSW south coast before even worse fire conditions return stuck for hours in gridlocked traffic

Tens of thousands of people remained stranded on Thursday evening while attempting to flee bushfire-ravaged areas of the south-east Australian coast – having earlier been urged to leave before the return of extreme and dangerous weather conditions.

The mass evacuation of communities in New South Wales and Victoria is among the largest ever emergency movements of people in Australia.

The numbers fleeing the bushfire crisis remain unclear, but are expected to compare to the 60,000 people who were flown out of Darwin after Cyclone Tracy in 1974.

Visitors told to flee a vast evacuation area along the NSW south coast reported sitting in gridlock for up to 10 hours after responding to the order to evacuate, as further outbreaks of fire and sheer weight of traffic blocked escape routes north of Ulladulla and near

Cooma in the Snowy Mountains.The prime minister, Scott Morrison, urged people to be patient, as he again deflected criticism about his government’s policies to address the causes of climate change.

On Thursday afternoon an angry protester told Morrison he should be “ashamed of himself” and that he had “left the country to burn” during a tour of the burnt out town of Cobargo.

Authorities in Victoria hold grave fears for 17 people missing across the state, and advised anyone who could do so to leave fire-affected places in the East Gippsland region.

At the Victorian coastal inlet of Mallacoota, which is among 20 towns that have been isolated by the fires since Tuesday, between 3,000 and 4,000 people were facing an impending food and water shortage as they waited to be evacuated by sea.

On Thursday afternoon, Australian defence force officials said they expected to relocate 800 people using the naval ship HMAS Choules, while others will be airlifted out.

New South Wales has declared a seven-day state of emergency before extreme conditions, including temperatures exceeding 40C, return to the south coast, Snowy Mountains and the outskirts of Sydney on Friday and Saturday.

Evacuation orders were issued to holidaymakers from Batemans Bay to the Victorian border and people were advised that two highway escape routes were opened – north to Sydney along the Princes Highway, and south, via the Monaro Highway,

hooking back to Canberra through Cooma. But on Thursday evening both routes were at a standstill as the fire threat lingered, with tailbacks of up to 25km reported.

The northern route was blocked from about midday by a bushfire that closed the Princes Highway. Motorists heading north were advised to delay their trip or take shelter at Ulladulla. The road remained closed about 6pm.

Motorists were reported abandoning their cars or heading to the south.

The southern route was also hampered by a bushfire that came close to the Monaro Highway and caused delays north of Cooma. Witnesses said the lines of stationary traffic near Cooma were more than 30km long.

Residents in the town of Batlow, famous for its apples, were advised to leave by Friday morning because of forecast fire danger in the Kosciuszko national park and surrounding areas. 😪

The entire park has been evacuated and authorities warned conditions were likely to be so severe that surrounding towns could not be defended.

NSW Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said conditions on Saturday were forecast to be worse than those on New Year’s Eve.

“Those fires have spread at the absolute worst-case scenario, which typically is not what happens when it plays out on the ground,”

Fitzsimmons said.

“The conditions on Saturday are likely to be worse than New Year’s Eve and a lot of those areas in the south-east quadrant of the state have the potential to be impacted and impacted very heavily.”

The New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said the state of emergency from Friday would give emergency services the authority to undertake forced evacuations and road closures at short notice.

“We don’t take these decisions lightly but we also want to make sure we’re taking every single precaution to be prepared for what could be a horrible day on Saturday,” she said.

Since Christmas Day, nine people have been killed in bushfires across New South Wales and Victoria,

while 17😪 people have died since the season began.

About 150 fires continued to burn in Victoria and NSW on Thursday afternoon and officials warned they would be unable to control the blazes before conditions worsen.

“We have no capacity to contain these fires … the fires are going to do what they are going to do, and people have to get out of that area,” NSW Rural Fire Service deputy commissioner Rob Rogers said.😰😪😭😢

Earlier on Tuesday, Morrison attended the funeral of Geoffrey Keaton, a volunteer firefighter who died on 19 December when his truck rolled at Green Wattle Creek, south of Sydney.

At a press conference afterwards, Morrison was repeatedly asked about his government’s climate🤬 policy.

Mothers, daughters, fathers, sons: the victims of the Australian bushfires😪
Nineteen people are confirmed to have died in the Australian bushfire season since October

At least 19 people have died in bushfires on the east coast of Australia since the summer season began in October.

Seven were killed in the horrific fire weather experienced in East Gippsland and the south coast of New South Wales on Monday 30 December.

Many more are missing and authorities have warned that the death toll could rise.😢The death toll is highest in NSW, where 16 people, including three volunteer firefighters, have died since October.

South Australia has had one confirmed death and Victoria two, but the Victorian toll is expected to rise, with at least 28 people unaccounted for.😪

Robert (Bob) Lindsey, 77, Coongbar😢
Bob Lindsey and his wife, Gwen Hyde, died in a bushfire on their rural property on Deadman Creek Road at Coongbar, about 50km south-west of Byron Bay in northern NSW.

Their bodies were discovered in their home on 9 October, the day after the fire went through.😪

They had been married for three years, and both left behind children from previous marriages. Lindsey had operated a service station before retiring.

Gwen Hyde, 68, Coongbar
Gwen Hyde died with her husband, Bob Lindsey.😢😪😥😢

Hyde’s friend, Carol Dillon, told the Australian that Hyde had called her asking for advice about the fire only hours before.

“Gwen rang me to see if I had the phone number for the fire brigade as she was getting spot fires in her orchard and wanted to know what to do,” Dillon said.😪😥

Vivian Chaplain, 69, Wytaliba😢😪
Vivian Chaplain was critically injured trying to defend her home at Wytaliba, 40km east of Glen Inness, on the 8 November fires in northern NSW. She died in hospital the next day.

She is survived by two children and six grandchildren, and was remembered by her daughter-in-law as “a strong woman who died protecting the home and animals she loved”. She was a former director of Wytaliba village and was described by a friend as “relentlessly wonderful.”

George Nole, 85, Glen Innes😥😪
George Nole died in his car in the Kangwalla fire near Glen Innes, in the northern NSW bushfire crisis on 8 November. He was described by residents of Wytaliba as a “true gentleman.”

Nole was born in Greece and worked as an electrician on Nasa’s Apollo program, the Glen Innes Examiner reported. He moved to Wytaliba in the 1980s, when the community was largely a nudist colony.

A friend, Philip Hine, described Nole as a “reclusive nudist” and a man who moved to the isolated village “to be himself.”

He had been diagnosed with leukaemia in 2014 and wanted to die at home.

Julie Fletcher, 63, Johns River
Julie Fletcher’s body😢😪 was found in a burned-out building at Johns River, 20km south of Port Macquarie, the day after the 8 November bushfire crisis in northern NSW.

A neighbour, Russel Souter, described her as a “quality person” whose family had lived in the region for several generations.

Barry Parsons, 58, Willawarrin😥😪
Barry Parsons is also assumed to have died in the 8 November fires that raged across northern NSW. He lived alone in a shed at Willawarrin, 60km north-west of Port Macquarie.

His body was found not far from that shed on 13 November, but he had not been heard of since the morning of 8 November, when he posted on social media: “seriously looks and sounds like [the apocalypse] out there. Fucked up being on your own in these times.”

Gerard Wade, captain of the Bellbrook fire brigade, told the Australian that Parsons was quite well known in the region and his death “will touch lives real bad”. Others described him as “a lovely gentle guy.”😢😥

Geoffrey Keaton, 32, 😪😢Buxton
Geoffrey Keaton was the deputy captain of the Horsley Park volunteer fire brigade. He and fellow volunteer Andrew O’Dwyer died when a tree fell in the path of their truck near Buxton in the NSW southern Highlands on 19

December, causing the truck to veer off the road and roll. “Just a half second either way and they would have been OK,” RFS commissioner Shane Fitzimmons said.

They were travelling in a convoy after fighting the Green Wattle Creek fire near Balmoral.

Keaton’s father was fighting the Gospers Mountain fire at the time.

Keaton was given an honour guard at his funeral on 2 January, and Fitzimmons presented his young son, Harvey, with a posthumous commendation for bravery and service.

He is survived by Harvey and his fiancee, Harvey’s mother Jess Hayes.

Andrew O’Dwyer, 36, Buxton😥😪
Andrew O’Dwyer died when the fire truck he was travelling in veered off the road and rolled late on the night of Thursday, 19 December. He was a volunteer with the Horsley Park RFS and died alongside fellow volunteer, Geoffrey Keaton.

They were travelling in a convoy after fighting the Green Wattle Creek fire.

He is survived by his wife Melissa and daughter Charlotte. Melissa O’Dwyer told the Daily Telegraph that the volunteer brigade had become “aunties and uncles” to Charlotte and Keaton’s son, Harvey,

“and that gives me a lot of comfort”.

“They can hear the stories about their dads and how mighty they have been,” she said.

Ron Selth, 69, Charleston😢😪
Ron Selth died in his home at Charleston in the Adelaide Hills, which was destroyed in the Cudlee Creek bushfire on 21 December.

In a statement, his family remembered him for his “incredible, sometimes injury-causing hugs” and said he

would be “deeply missed.”

“Some people give firm hugs – I don’t know what’s beyond firm, but that’s what Dad occasionally delivered. When he gave a hug, he meant it.”

Selth had an engineering business in the Adelaide Hills. He is survived by his partner Suzy, three children, and six grandchildren.

Samuel McPaul, 28, Jingellic😥😪
Volunteer firefighter Samuel McPaul died when the fire truck he was travelling flipped in a “fire tornado” at Jingellic, about 110km east of Albury, on Monday.

He was expecting his first child in May with his wife, Megan.

He attended school at Broulee on the NSW south coast and studied animal science at Charles Sturt University at Wagga Wagga. He was also a basketball coach in Holbrook and worked as a mechanic. A spokesman for the NSW Rural Fire Service said McPaul “did everything for the

right reasons” and always put the community first.

He is the third Rural Fire Service volunteer to die so far this fire season. Geoffrey Keaton, 32, and Andrew O’Dwyer, 36, died when a tree hit their tanker while they were fighting a fire at Balmoral, south-west of Sydney

Mick Roberts, 67, Buchan😢😪
East Gippsland man Mick Roberts was confirmed dead by his family on Wednesday. A family member found his body in the bedroom of his Buchan home.

He was a well-known local cattleman and stayed to defend his 450-acre farm, but had been unaccounted for since a bushfire burned through the town on Monday.

He loved his farm,his sister, Jenner Carter, told the ABC. He would never have left his home no matter what.”

She recalled his wit and dry humour. Other family members told News Corp that he was a well-loved, salt of the earth farmer, who “believed you don’t run from anything”

His grand-nephew, Toby Parsons, told the ABC he was “someone you could look up to”, a “hero” in the local community.

“I always had respect for him and no matter how rough or hard he looked on the outside,

he was so lovely on the inside and would always make you feel good,” Parsons said.

Robert Salway, 63, 😪and Patrick Salway, 29,😢 Wandella near Cobargo
Robert Salway died with his son Patrick, 29, attempting to defend the family property at Wandella, about 10km north-west of Cobargo, from the Badja Forest Road fire on Monday.

Their bodies were discovered by Robert’s wife, Patrick’s mother, on Tuesday.

They were described by friends as “one of the tightest, close-knit families you’ll ever come across”.

Robert was a well-known dairy farmer in the Bega region.

Patrick’s wife of five years, Renee, posted a tribute to him on social media. The pair were expecting their second child.

“I will see you again Patrick, my best friend,” Renee posted on social media. “We are broken.”😥

Five more people confirmed dead in NSW but not yet identified😥😢
They are a 70-year-old man who was found dead outside a home at Yatte Yattah, 6km west of Lake Conjola, on Tuesday; a man found in a car on Wandra Road in Sussex Inlet on Wednesday, a person found outside a home at

Coolagolite, 10km east of Cobargo; and a man found dead in a car in a road off the Princes Highway at Yatte Yattah on Wednesday.

A 72-year-old man from Belowra, who had been unaccounted for since 30 December, was confirmed dead by NSW police on Friday.

He was found on Belowra Road, about 5km northwest of Cobargo. One person confirmed dead in Victoria, not yet identified
Premier Daniel Andrews confirmed the death of a second man late on Thursday.

Twenty-eight still missing
At least 28 people are still missing😥😪 from small

communities in East Gippsland, and authorities hold “very significant fears” for their safety. The figure was updated from 17 on Friday, and many remote communities in East Gippsland have not yet been assessed by authorities.