Thousands of residents and tourists faced a second night camping out on beaches and in car parks yesterday to escape bushfires raging across the Australian state of New South Wales.
About 7,000 people, many of them summer vacationers, ran for their lives on Wednesday night when the inferno raced into Sussex Inlet, about 200km south of Sydney, police said. That blaze was now moving toward the towns of Bendalong and Berringer Lake about 10km further south, Shoalhaven Rural Fire Service spokeswoman June Webster said.
Those that escaped the blaze yesterday faced a second night out in the open or in packed community halls as the situation remained dangerous. A few were allowed back to check their property yesterday only to find 12 houses destroyed.
Tourists staying at the Rustic Caravan Park near Sussex Inlet were yesterday evacuated by helicopter ahead of the raging fires.
And access was now cut off to the nearby towns of Bendalong and Berringer Lake. "There's only one road out to the highway and that's ringed with fire. They can't get out," Webster said.
She would not put a figure on the number of people evacuated from those two towns, but one journalist estimated there were 2,000 evacuees.
The Shoalhaven fires and other blazes burning in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney were described as the most dangerous yesterday night.
"They are a long way from being completely under control," said Rural Fire Service spokesman John Winter.
A group of firefighters was earlier plucked by helicopter from the path of a ferocious blaze near Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains.
Rural Fire Service spokesman Cameron Wade said fire crews in the Blue Mountains had been in immediate danger as the blaze was being fanned by strong westerly winds.
Meanwhile, a spot fire in the Shoalhaven area on the south coast jumped into a nature reserve and was heading towards the popular spot of Jervis Bay, a few kilometers north of Sussex Inlet.
The fire could reach the coast within hours and the Navy vessel HMAS Creswell is on standby for a mass evacuation of the area if necessary.
Firefighters said two more Blue Mountain towns, Woodford and Faulconbridge, west of Sydney were also now in peril.
The fire was expected to reach Woodford around midnight, but buffer zones created by intensive backburning operations in the past few days were expected to steer the blaze away from homes.
Winter said aggressive water bombing and calmer weather conditions had helped in slowing down the path of the fire.
Overnight, firefighters could take advantage of cooler weather and calmer conditions to put in containment lines in the Shoalhaven area, he added.
Insurers warned the bill from the fires raging since Christmas Eve could rise to A$70 million (US$36 million).
The new estimates from the Insurance Disaster Response Organization (IDRO) took the total to well above the 1994 bushfire damage bill of A$56 million.
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