Devastating Australia Bush Fire Destroys Scores of Homes

SYDNEY — A devastating weekend fire that continued to rage into Monday consumed at least 69 homes in southern New South Wales, the state’s rural fire service said.

The blaze began midday Sunday in Tarraganda, southeast of Bega, and quickly crossed the Bega River before advancing toward the seaside town of Tathra. Hundreds of its 1,600 residents fled to safety in Bega after receiving emergency alerts.

As Monday morning dawned, aerial footage showed the still-smoking extent of the damage. No serious injuries or fatalities had been reported, but one woman was being treated for respiratory problems and burns, said Shane Fitzsimmons, the commissioner for the New South Wales Rural Fire Service.

The blaze covered more than 1,000 hectares of land, or almost 4 square miles. It caused outages and disrupted cellphone service because of downed power lines and damaged cellular towers.

The blaze comes amid increasing concern about extreme bush fires in southern and eastern Australia, with climate change and a paucity of rainfall believed to be behind the lengthening of the fire season from October through March.

Shane Fitzsimmons, commissioner for the state’s Rural Fire Service, said on 7 News Sydney that the fire was still not under control and called the situation “dangerous and dynamic.”

Crews assessing the fire’s effects in the Tathra area found at least 69 homes destroyed and dozens more damaged, he said.

Work crews were trying to get affected services such as water, sewage and telecommunications up and running again, Fitzsimmons said.

“The worst of the weather is behind us, but clearly the devastation, damage and destruction is what everyone’s seeking to grapple with now,” he said.

While conditions had eased since Sunday, 63 firefighters and three firefighting planes were still in the field trying to manage the blaze, Greg Allan, a spokesman for the Rural Fire Service, said Monday morning. At the height of the fire, at least 150 firefighters were involved in the effort. Asbestos exposure was a concern, he said.

“The firefighters will be using the better conditions today to have the fire contained as soon as possible,” Allan said.

Residents in areas deemed safe were being allowed to return to their homes Monday. Earlier in the day, at an evacuation center in Bega, more than 500 people had been anxiously waiting for updates.

Speaking there, Kristy McBain, mayor of the Bega Valley Shire Council, commended fire and police crews, saying, “The evacuation was coordinated the best it could have been.”

She said tightknit Tathra and Bega had already received hundreds of messages of support from people in surrounding communities offering help.

“I’m sure that we’ll come through this fine,” McBain said. “We’re a very resilient community.”

Still, for some of those affected, the damage seemed brutal.

“It was all gone within half an hour,” John Blankenstein told The Sydney Morning Herald as he looked at the scorched remains of his wife’s childhood home.

Other fires also raged in rural Victoria on Sunday, causing damage to at least 18 homes and 40 sheds and killing livestock in one of the season’s worst blazes.