Easing weather conditions are helping firefighters battle the bushfire that has killed two people and razed 143 properties in Western Australia’s southwest.
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Bushfires are an annual summer event in Australia.
At least two people have lost their lives and over a hundred homes have been destroyed as a massive bushfire rages on in Australia, authorities say.
DFES said the majority of the town’s population of 540 chose to leave on Thursday, but about 150 remained behind.
After re-entering the houses, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services found the remains of the men in two separate houses.
“The ICA has been liaising with the West Australian Government and emergency services, and has chose to escalate the industry’s response due to the severity of the situation”, Whelan said.
Four firefighters were injured battling the blaze in Yarloop and one fire truck was destroyed.
At a community meeting in Pinjarra over the weekend, Yarloop angry residents claimed authorities had failed to give them adequate warning as a fire was bearing down on their town. “It is incomprehensible to me that people would say, well, I didn’t know that there was a fire on my doorstep”, he said.
Police said the suspected human remains could belong to two men, aged 73 and 77, who have been missing since the blaze swept across the town on Thursday night.
“But just when we think we’re moving into recovery we’ve had spot fires today and we’ve got looming bad weather – high winds and thunderstorms – coming in by the end of the week, so we might be repeating what we had last week”.
“Unless you are ready and prepared to actively defend your property, evacuate to the south via the South Western Highway if safe to do so”, it said.
The bushfire tore through the town of Yarloop.
Main Roads has warned motorist to avoid the fire stricken areas.
Around 2,500 people were evacuated from Harvey on Saturday afternoon after fire conditions escalated with bushfires breaking free of containment lines.
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Murray Cowper, a Liberal MP whose state electorate includes the fire zone, said it could take months until the fire is extinguished and firefighters – both in managerial positions in DFES and volunteers – needed ongoing support.
