A SECOND MAN HAS BEEN ARRESTED AND CHARGED with arson connected with the massive brush fires in Australia. Just days after the first arsonist, now identified as Brian Sokaluk was arrested, police have taken an unnamed 38-yr.-old man into custody last night (Tuesday). The UK Telegraph reports:
The man, who was working on one of the main roadblocks set up across the state during the fires, allegedly threw cigarette butts into long grass “to see what would happen”.
The butts sparked a fire, which burned through one hectare of countryside, before it was brought under control by the Country Fire Authority. No lives or homes were threatened by the blaze, but a nearby fire had killed two people earlier in the week.
The current death toll from the fires now stands at 201 including an on-duty firefighter who was killed yesterday when a tree fell on him. Victorian authorities say that they don’t expect the count to rise very much higher as most of the missing people have been accounted for. Victoria police said the latest confirmed deaths, 11 people, occurred in a fire that destroyed the town of Kinglake and surrounding areas.
The Guardian reports:
In some cases, all that remained of the victims was ash, said police deputy commissioner, Kieran Walshe.
“Fire does terrible damage to bodies and the identification process is going to be a lengthy process and it’s going to require scientific examination,” Walshe said. “In some cases it will be within a few weeks, in other cases it may well be we’re unable to be definitive about the identity.”
Where there was only ash, victim identification crews relied on other clues, such as jewellery found in the ruins, to help identify the remains, Walshe said.
More than 7,000 people are homeless as a result of the fires.
There are still six fires burning across the state and several other countries, including the U. S. and Canada, are sending wildfire teams there to assist.
The Associated Press has this video report on the establishment of a special panel to investigate the recent fires:
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