Roaring flames that turned the sky a blazing red drove thousands of people to the waterfront of a popular vacation town in southeast Australia on Tuesday.
"When will this nightmare end?" asked Jann Gilbert, who posted a series of Facebook videos as the fire raced toward Mallacoota in Victoria. "Unless you're here, you can't even imagine what it's actually like," she said in one of them.
Similar scenes played out in beach towns all along Australia's southeast coast where thousands of vacationers were celebrating the holidays.
At least 13 people have died during this bushfire season, one of the worst in Australia's history. More than 19,300 square miles — an area twice the size of Maryland — have burned. More than 140 fires are still burning in Victoria and New South Wales, and they've destroyed more than 950 homes, news.com.au reported. Another hundred or so fires are burning in South Australia, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania.
Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Defense Minister Linda Reynolds have agreed to send military helicopters and ships to NSW and Victoria to help with evacuations and firefighting support, the Australian Broadcast Corp. reported.
A father and son who had stayed behind to save their property near Cobargo, NSW, died in the fire that destroyed large areas of the town, ABC reported. Another person was missing in NSW, and four people were unaccounted for in Victoria.
Police warned that all phone and internet communication could be out for more than two days after power was lost along much of the NSW coastline.
The NSW Rural Fire Service commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons, said the full extent of the damage may not be known until the fires are under control, The Guardian reported.
“We need to brace ourselves for a considerable number of properties, a considerable number of homes that are likely to have been damaged and or destroyed right across these eight emergency warning fire areas, given the extraordinary nature of the fire behavior and fire spread today,” he said.
Residents and visitors in NSW coastal towns, like those in Victoria, were told the beaches may be the safest place to seek shelter.
"Staying safe in large centers, such as Batemans Bay, is a viable option, otherwise a lot of other coastal villages and hamlets, the messages is to head to safety and generally speaking, safety is toward the beach," Fitzimmons said.
About 6 miles south of Batesmans Bay, staffers at the Mogo Wildlife Park worked to save the park's 200 animals, including Australia’s largest collection of primates. The zoo is also home to zebras, white rhinos, lions, tigers and giraffes.
"We have still have a lot of spot fires, but it felt like armageddon a few hours ago," zoo director Chad Staples told ABC.
He said workers watered as much of the zoo as possible and put the larger animals in their night dens.
"Any species of animal that was small enough or in an area that we couldn't protect, we caught up. Right now, in my house there's animals of all description in all the different rooms, that are there safe and protected."
In Mallacoota, a loud cheer went up on the waterfront when officials announced a change in the wind had saved the town from the approaching flames.
"So that is good news for us," Steve Warrington, chief fire offficer at Victoria's Country Fire Authority, said. "But having said that — as we said before — there are still active fires in that area and they're still actively extinguishing houses that have burnt down on the outskirts of Mallacoota. That work will continue."
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
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