Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been confronted by angry protesters in the bushfire-hit town of Cobargo in New South Wales. Two people died near the Bega Valley town when it was hit by a raging bushfire early on New Year’s Eve. Visiting the town on Thursday to meet emergency services workers and offer his support to bushfire victims, the PM found …

A volunteer firefighter has died and two others have been injured while working on a fire burning near Albury, the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) has confirmed. The RFS said the three firefighters were the same truck working on a blaze near Jingellic, near the Victorian border, when it rolled over after being hit by extreme winds. One firefighter was …

It was a family business on the brink of collapse, but by harnessing the power of social media, Bridestowe Lavender Estate has become a global tourist destination. Robert Ravens could see the potential as a tourist site in 2007 and purchased the property as a retirement project. “We had no customers and no technology. We didn’t know anything about anything,” …

A well-known Queensland snake catcher has been released from hospital after being bitten by an eastern brown snake at a house south of Brisbane. Tony Harrison was live-streaming on Facebook on Saturday when he was bitten by a brown snake which was hiding under an air conditioning unit outside the home in Pimpama. The video shows the snake striking at …

Sydney Harbour New Year’s Eve fireworks display to go ahead despite bushfire risk The City of Sydney Council says the harbour’s New Year’s Eve fireworks will go ahead as planned but the Rural Fire Service (RFS) has refused to rule out cancelling the event at the last minute. Heatwave conditions are expected across large parts of the state next week, …

Volunteer firefighters battling long-running NSW blazes could receive up to $6000 in financial support for their efforts. The federal government on Sunday bowed to pressure to provide payments to those on the firefront this bushfire season, which in NSW has already cost eight lives, as many as 1000 homes and millions of hectares of bushland. The payments of up to …

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has conceded he caused “great anxiety in Australia” by taking a family holiday in Hawaii as bushfires burned across Australia, saying with the benefit of hindsight he would have made a different decision. Mr Morrison announced he would cut his trip short on Friday, after the deaths of two volunteer firefighters in New South Wales. He …

Drivers who are caught throwing cigarettes out their car windows will be slapped with 10 demerit points and fined $11,000 under new laws in New South Wales. The laws, announced on Thursday, will apply during total fire bans. When there isn’t a total fire ban, drivers who toss lit cigarettes will be hit with five demerit points. Passengers caught chucking …

As a catastrophic bushfire emergency unfolded across three states on Saturday with lives lost, homes destroyed and Christmas holiday plans for thousands of people in chaos, Prime Minister Scott Morrison is set to fly back into Sydney on Saturday night. Amid mounting pressure to return home, cutting a family holiday in Hawaii short and issuing a statement he “deeply regretted” …

A tight-knit western Sydney volunteer firefighting brigade has been devastated after two firefighters were killed in the battle to contain a blaze that ripped through villages southwest of the city. Geoffrey Keaton, 32, and Andrew O’Dwyer, 36, from the Horsley Park brigade, were in a truck convoy near the town of Buxton late on Thursday when a tree fell into …