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A small koala has been rescued from bushfires that are currently raging though South Australia. Firemen said the koala was too scared to climb a tree to escape the blaze.
"He’s been drinking now for ten, fifteen minutes non-stop. We found him on the side of the road," said a firemen as he gave the koala a drink of water.
"It couldn’t climb a tree, it was fairly scared – it just couldn’t get up a tree. It was trying."
A spokesman from the SA Country Fire Service told SBS: "It will be devastating for a lot of the animals in the area. There will be a lot that will unfortunately lose their lives."
Footage of another koala being rescued has also been widely shared on social media. South Australian Kerry Goldsworthy posted a video on Facebook of the marsupial drinking water on her front yard.
"Came home to find a very hot and thirsty koala right in our front yard!" she wrote. "When we first got home he was lying on the hot concrete trying to get shade behind the wheelie bins. Poor thing."
During the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009, a different koala called Sam became a symbol of hope after the injured animal was photographed drinking from a fireman's water bottle. The image was broadcast on the internet and in newspapers, capturing hearts the world over.
South Australia is enduring the state's worst fire conditions since the Ash Wednesday blaze in 1983, in which 28 people died in SA.
The Sampson Flat bushfire, in the Mount Lofty ranges, has been burning since Friday and has claimed almost 13,000 hectares of scrub and farmland.
Firefighters are working to contain the blaze ahead of a return of hot weather tomorrow.
An initial tally indicates that at least a dozen homes have been lost and South Australia's premier says another 20 are likely to have been lost in the inferno.
"We did fear that a further 20 may have been lost and we'll know by the middle of the day the actual numbers," Premier Jay Weatherill told the Nine Network on Monday.
"But of course we do know that kennels housing people's pets have been lost and that is obviously a massive tragedy for people.
"Stock losses are likely to be considerable and sadly there will be homes that will have been lost.
"We're really racing against time to try to make sure that we get as much of this contained before the hotter weather and the stronger winds are expected later in the week."
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