Jan 1, 2010

Aussies return to razed homes

What’s left: A firefighter finds figurines among burnt remains inside a house in the Lloyds Hill area north of Perth on Wednesday. — AP

PERTH: Residents returned to nearly 40 homes razed in Australia’s most destructive wildfires in almost year, which left four people injured.

Wildfires possibly sparked by fallen power lines scorched a swath of western Australian farm and forest land on Tuesday and Wednesday, and hundreds of fighters worked to contain them by yesterday, emergency authority spokesman Allen Gale said.

The fires destroyed 38 homes around the township of Toodyay, 80km north of the coastal city of Perth.

A woman resident required hospital treatment for burns while three firefighters were treated for smoke inhalation and a heat-related illness, Gale said.

About 150 people who had been evacuated from the fire path on Tuesday were given permission yesterday morning to pass the police blocks and return to the destruction zone, he said. It was their first opportunity to assess the damage to their property.

Gale said that destroyed houses may still be smoldering, and that even houses that had survived undamaged were without power.

“There will still be heat in some of those buildings,” Gale said. “It’s not the time to go sifting through the remains and the debris; it’s time to see what the situation is and make an assessment,” he added.

The federal government joined the Western Australia state government yesterday in offering financial assistance to communities affected by what has been declared a natural disaster.

The declaration on Wednesday made victims eligible for thousands of dollars in state government handouts.

Fires near Toodyay and further north near the town of Badgingarra scorched a combined total of more than 13,400 hectares of sheep and wheat farms and forests. Stock losses have yet to be assessed.

Gale said the fires had destroyed more property than any other in Australia since February when the nation experienced its worst wildfire disaster on record.

Hundreds of blazes raced across huge parts of southeastern Victoria state, killing 173 people and destroying more than 2,000 homes in a single day. — AP