00:00 Overnight, police have confirmed they found a body at the site of a bushfire near Tara.
00:08 They say that this is an emerging situation and investigations are ongoing, but they have
00:14 said a report will be prepared for the coroner.
00:17 So Tara is about 100 kilometres away from where I am in Milmerran right now, and a large
00:23 bushfire there has burnt through about 7,600 hectares, about 173 residents are staying
00:31 at the town's evacuation centre and five properties or structures have been confirmed to have
00:38 been destroyed so far in that fire.
00:41 That number is expected to potentially rise when more checks can be carried out today.
00:45 Now earlier this morning, one of the local firefighters told the ABC that firefighters
00:52 had to be pulled out of fighting that blaze last night as flames were reaching 10 to 15
00:58 metres in height and conditions were getting too dangerous for firefighters.
01:03 And that was also occurring at the bushfire here just south of Milmerran at Milmerran
01:10 Woods and Milmerran Downs.
01:11 So fire crews were fighting those really deteriorating conditions.
01:17 Now the fire here in Milmerran is about 20 kilometres south of the town and a leave immediately
01:22 and unsafe to return warnings remain in place there.
01:26 About 2,000 hectares have been burnt at this fire and authorities say at least three structures
01:32 have been destroyed here.
01:34 Toby, obviously a very difficult time for local residents.
01:38 What are they telling you?
01:39 Yes, Corina, local residents are pretty devastated, especially the ones who have lost their homes.
01:47 So a number of them I've spoken to wouldn't go on camera when I talked to them because
01:53 they were quite a bit upset with the media because helicopter footage had shown, they
01:59 had learnt that their homes had been destroyed after watching helicopter footage that showed
02:05 their homes, which is quite a traumatic thing for them.
02:08 But they say that they're going to, you know, group together and rebuild.
02:13 Other residents I spoke with in town have told me that they had to get out quite quickly
02:19 when the warnings came through.
02:22 My wife woke me to air raid sirens going off.
02:24 They've got out there to alert the community of a fire and then about nine minutes past
02:32 one we got the warning from QPS to leave via SMS, so leave immediately.
02:40 So we hooked up our caravan and threw in what we needed and all our eight dogs and two cats
02:50 and the essentials, medication.
02:54 Now Corina, the community is rallying behind those impacted.
02:58 Businesses are collecting donations here in town.
03:01 The local vet is looking after some animals that need to be looked after.
03:07 But with dry and hot and as you can probably tell around me, windy conditions today, it's
03:13 going to be a tense day for residents here.
03:15 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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