Northern Ireland

'Everybody's pretty scared' says Irish paramedic in Australia

Philip Walker
Philip Walker Philip Walker

A PARAMEDIC from Derry living near the deadly bushfires in Australia has described the scenes as "frightening".

Philip Walker, a former ambulance worker in Louth, moved to New South Wales (NSW) in 2013 with his wife and they now have three children.

He said he cannot see an end to the devastating blazes unless it starts to rain.

"Everybody's pretty scared. The Australian people are very resilient out here. Bushfires are something that happens every year – although this one's unprecedented," he told RTÉ.

"We don't really know what the next stage is going to be, there is no sign of these fires going out, there is no sign of rain."

Bushfires have killed at least 18 people since September and destroyed more than 1,200 homes across NSW and neighbouring Victoria.

Australia has authorised the evacuation of 4,000 residents in Victoria amid a mass exodus of tourists fleeing a vast "tourist leave zone" in NSW, as the country braces for a further weekend heatwave.

The nearest fire to Mr Walker's home is around 65km (40 miles) away – but he said they have already packed in case of an evacuation order.

He said the smoke from the bushfires has particularly impacted those with respiratory conditions and "so we see a lot more of those people presenting to the ambulance service and paramedics and hospitals".

He added: "It is frightening to see towns or large areas of bush land that go on fire and because they're so dry and the winds are so high, really the time to evacuate is quite limited and sometimes people have been told, it is too late to leave now, that you need to seek shelter and I suppose at that point its particularly frightening for those people who are trapped and we're seeing that on the south coast at the moment where we've had 4,000 people evacuate onto beaches."

Mr Walker praised the volunteer firefighters tackling the blazes in rural areas, saying, "I don't think the communities here in Australia can actually thank them enough for what they're doing."