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9 , 999A10 O THEGLOBEANDMAIL| WEDNESDAY,NOVEMBER13,
Ferocious wildfires were burning
at emergency-level intensity
across Australia’s most populous
state and into Sydney’s suburbs
Tuesday as authorities warned
most people in their paths that
there was no longer time to flee.
New South Wales is under a
weeklong state of emergency, a
declaration that gives the state’s
Rural Fire Service sweeping pow-
ers to control resources and di-
rect othergovernment agencies
in its efforts to battle fires. The
worst fires on Tuesday emerged
in the state’s northeast, where
three people have died and more
than 150 homes have been de-
stroyed since Friday.
A catastrophic fire warning
was in place for Sydney, Austra-
lia’s largest city, where a large
blaze threatened homes Tuesday
afternoon in suburban Turra-
murra, 17 kilometres from the
city’s downtown.
A firefighter suffered a frac-
tured arm and ribs before the fire
was rapidly contained with the
aid of a jet dumping fire retar-
dant and a helicopter dropping
water, officials said. Turramurra
residents reported trees catching
fire in their backyards from em-
bers.
Rural Fire Service Commis-
sioner Shane Fitzsimmons saidmany people had heeded his
warning and evacuated their
homes in the danger zone well
ahead of the escalating fire
threat Tuesday.
“We’ve got very tight, winding
roads into a lot of these areas,
which is why we talked about
leaving early as the safest op-
tion,” Commissioner Fitzsim-
mons told reporters.
“The last thing we want to do
is be managing mass evacuationsin pretty difficult-to-access areas
and running the risk of having a
whole bunch of congested road-
ways and seeing people inciner-
ated in their cars,” he added.
Of 85 fires burning across New
South Wales, 14 were rated as
emergencies and burning out of
control by late afternoon, the Ru-
ral Fire Service said. That’s the
largest number across the state
in decades apart from Friday,
when an unprecedented 17
emergency fires blazed.
“It is too late to leave on most
of these fires and sheltering is
now your only option as fire ap-
proaches,” Commissioner Fitz-
simmons said.
Winds were reaching 80 km/h
in some areas and were expected
to gather pace as the day pro-
gressed. There were reports of
potential destruction of homes
south of the town of Taree, near
where a 63-year-old woman died
in her home Friday, Commis-
sioner Fitzsimmons said.
A “small number of proper-
ties” appeared to have been de-
stroyed or damaged by late Tues-
day, he said.
More than 600 schools and
technical colleges were closed
because they are close to wood-
lands at risk of fire.The Australian fire season,
which peaks during the South-
ern Hemisphere summer, has
started early after an unusually
warm and dry winter.
More than one million hec-
tares of forest and farmland had
already burned across the state
this fire season – more than
three times the 280,000 hectares
that burned during all of last sea-
son.
The catastrophic fire warning
is a first for Sydney. World Mete-
orological Organization spokes-
woman Clare Nullis told report-
ers in Geneva that “catastrophic”
was the top of the danger scale
in Australia, and probably any-
where.
“The current fires are due to a
combination of factors, includ-
ing low soil moisture, heat and,
importantly, wind direction and
wind speed,” she said.
She cited figures from the
Australian Bureau of Meteorolo-
gy saying New South Wales had
endured its driest 34-month peri-
od on record, and that Australia
over all has faced its second-war-
mest January-to-October period
in recent history, based on re-
cords dating back 110 years.ASSOCIATED PRESSOfficialwarnsAustraliansinfires’pathstotakeshelter
Commissionersaysit’s
‘toolate’formanywho
stayedindangerzones
toescape,asblazesburn
acrossNewSouthWales
RODMcGUIRKCANBERRA
ResidentsbeatbackflamesnearTaree,Australia,Tuesday.A63-year-old
womandiednearthetownFridayandtherearereportsofpotential
destructionofhomestoitssouth.PETERPARKS/AFP/GETTYIMAGESAn off-duty Toronto police offi-
cer testified he was trying to dis-
arm Dafonte Miller when he re-
peatedly punched Mr. Miller “as
hard as I could.”
Michael Theriault, who was
testifying at his own assault trial
on Tuesday, is jointly charged
with his brother Christian The-
riault with aggravated assault in
the December, 2016, beating of
Mr. Miller. They are also separate-
ly charged with obstruction of
justice for misleading the police
who investigated the incident.
Michael Theriault has been sus-
pended with pay since he was
charged in 2017.
Mr. Miller, a 19-year-old black
man, was hit in the face with
such force that he had to have his
eye surgically removed.
In the past two weeks of the
judge-only trial at the Superior
Court of Justice in Oshawa, the
Crown built a case that Mr. Mill-
er and his friends were walking
in a residential Whitby neigh-
bourhood in the early hours
when the Theriault brothers al-
legedly confronted them,
chased Mr. Miller and severely
beat him with their fists and
feet as well as with a metre-
long pole or pipe. Mr. Miller tes-
tified that two blows to his face
with that pole, allegedly used
by Michael Theriault, caused
his eye to “burst.”
Michael Theriault’s lawyer, Mi-
chael Lacy, opened his question-
ing of his client Tuesday by ask-
ing specifically who wielded the
pole. Michael Theriault replied
that it was Mr. Miller.
“We know that Dafonte Miller
suffered a very catastrophic inju-
ry to his left eye. Did you cause
that injury?” Mr. Lacy asked. “Yes
I did,” Michael Theriault replied.
“How did you cause the injury?”
Mr. Lacy asked. “With my fists,”
Michael Theriault said.Michael Theriault told court
he and his brother went to their
garage to have a cigarette in the
early morning of Dec. 28, 2016.
While there, they heard the
sound of their parents’ pickup
truck doors closing.
Michael Theriault recalled he
told his brother to open the ga-
rage door and he rolled under-
neath. He spotted two men in the
truck, and they fled in two direc-
tions.
Michael Theriault said he did
not know if they had stolen items
from the car or had plans to hot-wire it, but believed a crime had
been committed so he decided to
chase one of them, Mr. Miller,
and called out to his brother to
follow him.
He told court he was dressed
in a T-shirt, jeans and socked
feet. He testified he wasn’t
armed with any weapons. He
said he did not identify himself
as a police officer, tell Mr. Miller
to stop or ask him what he was
doing.
As he ran down the street, Mi-
chael Theriault said Mr. Miller
veered off the road into a dark
space between two houses. In his
extensive cross-examination of
Michael Theriault, Crown attor-
ney Peter Scrutton repeatedly
asked why the off-duty officer
pursued Mr. Miller with such per-
ceived recklessness, which
seemed to run contrary to his po-
lice training.
“You’re so concerned about
apprehending one of two people
who may have been stealing
change or sunglasses from your
parents’ car that you’re running
into a dangerous area?” Mr.
Scrutton asked. “It happened ve-
ry quickly,” Michael Theriault
said.
Michael Theriault said Mr.
Miller tried to hop over a fence
into a backyard but he body-
checked him. Soon after that, he
testified, Mr. Miller produced a
metre-long pole that he allegedly
used to strike Michael Theriault
on his body and Christian The-riault on his head.
“Once he pulled out the pole
pretty much all hell broke loose
and that’s when I was very fear-
ful,” he testified.
The Theriault brothers’ law-
yers have suggested Mr. Miller re-
trieved the pole from one of the
houses on the street close towhere they fought. Michael The-
riault said he started punching
Mr. Miller in the face and body to
make him drop the pole. Later,
he said he punched Mr. Miller in
an effort to get him to stop
punching his brother.
He testified that at no point
did he or his brother strike Mr.TorontoofficertellscourtheattackedMillerusingfistsratherthanpole
DAKSHANABASCARAMURTY
| NEWSMr.Miller,
a19-year-oldblackman,
washitinthefacewith
suchforcethathehad
tohavehiseye
surgicallyremoved.