Driver cops $1,320 fine for littering
A Sydney man has admitted to being a “boofhead” after police caught him throwing a lit cigarette out his car’s window near bushfires during a total fire ban.
Campbelltown Highway Patrol spotted the 51-year-old man from Miller discarding the cigarette from his vehicle in Rosemeadow on Saturday morning.
“The location is only about 20kms from where fires are burning in Wollondilly,” the police said in a statement on Facebook.
“When asked why he had done it, the male told police ‘I’m a boofhead’.”
The man was issued with an infringement notice and penalised with a fine of $1,320.
As of Sunday morning, there were 96 bush and grass fires in NSW – 47 of which were not contained.
The “mega fire” at Gospers Mountain near Sydney’s northwestern outskirts is expected to continue burning until substantial rain arrives at the end of January or early February, The Guardian reported.
“The total area burnt by these fires is around 335,000 hectares,” the NSW Rural Fire Service said in a statement on Friday evening.
“These will take many weeks to put out – and only when we get good rain.”
The ongoing bushfires in NSW and Queensland have burned areas covering at least 2.2 million hectares, killed six people and destroyed more than 680 homes.
Image credit: Traffic and Highway Patrol Command - NSW Police Force