The devastating blazes that destroyed at least 21 homes in northern NSW on Tuesday have been declared a catastrophe by the Insurance Council of Australia.
The council said on Thursday the Rappville fire – which police have declared as suspicious – and the blazes at Busby Flat and Drake were its second official bushfire catastrophe in just five weeks.
Assessment teams are still assessing how many properties were lost or damaged in the blaze, which is believed to have started in the Busbys Flat area on Friday night.
Across the Busbys Flat and Drake fires, which have joined together in recent days, at least 21 homes have been destroyed.
More buildings have been damaged, but the NSW Rural Fire Service said numbers would rise as more properties were inspected.
由 Candice Newby 发布于 2019年10月9日周三
Allan Robertson lost his home at Rappville. He has been left with just the clothes he was wearing, his phone and “my worst thongs”.
He said he was uninsured and his partner was in palliative care.
“It was just like a massive fireball. There was nothing you could do. The heat was horrendous,” he told Network Ten.
Authorities believe the fire that ripped through the village of Rappville this week may have been deliberately lit, in what NSW Emergency Services Minister David Elliott has described as a “bastard act”.
NSW Police and fire investigators have formed a strike force to determine the cause of the fire.
“In the absence of any other obvious cause, we always default to being suspicious, and we work through a very thorough process,” NSW Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told the Nine Network.
“We’ve got to call it out – it’s a heinous crime, a criminal act.”
Some locals were still unaccounted for on Wednesday but authorities were working to get in touch with all those who had been forced to flee.
ICA chief executive Rob Whelan said declaring the fires a catastrophe meant the council would set up a disaster hotline and send disaster recovery specialists into the affected areas.
“Insurers are standing by to help customers in this region, with assessors mobilising to examine properties once it’s safe to do so,” ICA chief executive Rob Whelan said.
“It may take several weeks before insurers are able to quantify the extent of insured losses.”
The RFS said residents likely would not be able to return home for several days given trees are down across roads and power lines are on the ground.
NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance tweeted that stretches of rail line had been damaged by fire, with the Rappville Rail Bridge destroyed.
📷 Some of the aftermath of the devastating bushfires currently burning in Northern NSW.
Stretches of the North Coast rail line have crippled by fire, with the Rappville Rail Bridge destroyed.
Thinking of all those affected by bushfires across the state. pic.twitter.com/RKj00RvMwP
— Andrew Constance MP (@AndrewConstance) October 8, 2019
The RFS also warned that even though better weather is forecast, the fires could flare again. Rain is expected in the burned areas of northern NSW and south-eastern Queensland at the end of this week.
It is the third bushfire catastrophe declared this year by the ICA in 2019.
The ICA said insurers had received 300 claims covering $20 million in insured losses from last month’s fires in northern NSW and south-east Queensland.
In March, the ICA declared a catastrophe for the Bunyip bushfires in eastern Victoria. It said insurers had received 432 claims, with losses estimated at $31.9 million.
The first catastrophe for 2019 was declared in February following the Townsville floods. Insurers have received more than 30,000 claims from that incident, with losses of $1.26 billion.
The Insurance Council of Australia’s disaster hotline is 1800 734 621. More information here.
-with AAP
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