00:01Well, Gemma, police have confirmed that they've discovered two bodies in the wreckage of a
00:06home behind me at Bowen Mountain.
00:09Now, this is after a fire tore through a family home here, completely engulfing the home in
00:16the early hours of the morning.
00:18We're told five people escaped the home, including a man in his 30s and four children.
00:26But police had told us this morning that two people remained unaccounted for throughout
00:31the morning.
00:32And we understand those to be children now.
00:34The very sad confirmation this morning that two bodies have been found in the wreckage
00:40of the home.
00:41Neighbours have told us that they were woken at 2am this morning by the father of the family
00:46that lived in that home and alerted to the fire.
00:49They rushed to provide assistance, but the home was engulfed in flames.
00:53We understand more than 50 rural fire service members attended this scene to battle the
01:01blaze, including many local volunteers who were told ran to the scene to provide assistance.
01:06But the challenge for them was the extent of the fire, the extent to which it had engulfed
01:11the home and was already beginning to degrade the structure, making access to the home very
01:16difficult.
01:17An early assessment of the building recognised that parts of the walls were looking to collapse,
01:22and parts of the structure had collapsed inside the home.
01:25Firefighters' dynamic risk assessment would have shown them that it would be too dangerous
01:29to go inside the home while it was collapsing.
01:31This is a two-storey home, and so it would have been very, very dangerous for firefighters
01:35to access the home in the early stages.
01:37It's a very overwhelming situation.
01:39Even the most trusted and steady hands that have been doing this for 30 years, it's a situation
01:45that you really can't comprehend until you're in it.
01:49Police say they're working to formally identify the bodies that were discovered in the scene
01:54here, and they'll be providing an update later on today.
01:56Police say they're working to escape this day.
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