Today Show reporter Gabrielle Boyle has told how she encountered a blonde-haired girl running through an evacuated fire zone. Ms Boyle, and her camera operator, Jess, were driving through an exclusion zone in northern New South Wales this week when they spotted the girl. She had tears streaming down her face and was running barefoot through smouldering ash.
Ms Boyle stopped her and asked her if she was ok and gave her a drink of water. After speaking with the girl for an hour she revealed that she had had a row with her family and run away. Ms Boyle said she took the girl home after she refused a police escort and reunited her with her worried mother. The girl's mother told Ms Boyle about their battle with the bushfires and the neighbour's house was destroyed in the blaze.
Ms Boyle pictured , and her camera operator, Jess, were driving through an exclusion zone in New South Wales this week when they spotted the girl. The mother said tensions were high in their house and after she snapped at the girl for dropping her phone in a dog water bowl, she ran away. But Ms Boyle believes the young girl didn't run away because she argued with her mother. She wasn't running from the flames, she was running from the trauma,' Ms Boyle wrote.
I told her to call me if she ever needed to talk. After the girl was taken home, Ms Boyle found out the girl had been traumatised by bushfires. Fire danger ratings are severe in the far north coast, New England, the northern slopes and northwestern regions, and very high in the Greater Sydney, Greater Hunter, Central Ranges and North Coast regions. Tuesday is expected to see temperatures nearing 40C in the Hunter region, with the mid north coast getting into the high 30s and the northern tablelands experiencing the low 30s - all amid continued dry conditions.
Exhausted firefighters, especially those in the state's north who have been fighting fires for weeks, will be bolstered by crews from the south and west of NSW, as well as interstate crews and help from New Zealand, Mr Rogers said.
