Human remains found during Australia bushfires

SYDNEY, Jan 11 – Human remains were found in Australia’s southeast where bushfires raging for days have razed buildings, cut power to thousands of homes and burned swathes of bushland, police said on Sunday.

The blazes, burning out of control during a summer heatwave, have torn through more than 350,000 hectares (860,000 acres) of bushland in Victoria state since the middle of the week, destroying more than 300 structures, including homes, and leaving thousands without power.

Authorities have said the fires are the worst to hit the southeast since the 2019-2020 Black Summer blazes that destroyed an area the size of Turkey and killed 33 people.

The human remains were found by a vehicle near the town of Longwood, some 110 km (70 miles) north of the state capital Melbourne, Victoria police said in a statement, adding that the victim was not yet identified.

That fire, one of the largest burning on Sunday, has already destroyed properties, vineyards and agricultural land.

Victoria’s premier, Jacinta Allan, said more than 30 fires were burning across the state. In neighboring New South Wales, which includes Sydney, several fires close to the Victorian border were burning at the highest danger rating, the state’s Rural Fire Service said.

The chief fire officer of Forest Fire Management Victoria, Chris Hardman, said it would likely take firefighters weeks to get the upper hand on the fires.

“These fires will not be contained before it gets hot, dry and windy again,” Hardman told Australian Broadcasting Corporation television.

Allan posted on X that a total fire ban was in place for Victoria as thousands of firefighters and more than 70 aircraft battled the blazes.

“Bushfire smoke is impacting air quality in many areas across Victoria, including metropolitan Melbourne,” she said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the federal government would offer emergency funding to bushfire-hit residents as well as to farmers, who had the “extraordinary cost of undertaking immediate and emergency livestock fodder distribution”.

“It’s estimated that thousands of head of cattle are likely to have been impacted,” Albanese said in televised remarks.