Bushfire: ‘Beautiful Uncle Mick’ Roberts mourned in Victoria

A much-loved great-grandfather and town ‘larrikin’ has been identified as Victoria’s first victim of the bushfire tragedy.

Buchan bushfire victim Mick Roberts

A much-loved great-grandfather and town “larrikin” from the small village of Buchan has been identified as the first victim of Victoria’s bushfire tragedy after catastrophic fires ripped through coastal towns across NSW and Victoria this week, killing eight and leaving five others missing.

Mick Roberts, 67, failed to make contact with family despite the fires raging through his town, and his niece Leah Parson confirmed the worst on the East Gippsland fire season Facebook page.

“He’s not missing anymore ... sorry but his body has been found in his house ... very sad day for us to start the year but we’re a bloody tight family and we will never forget our mate and my beautiful Uncle Mick,” Ms Parson wrote.

Mr Roberts’s body was discovered by his nephew Jason, Ms ­Parson said.

He had been with two friends painting when the fire hit.

“They ran into the river on the property but they couldn’t get him to go,” she said.

“He said he needed to go into the shed for a minute and they never saw him again.”

Ms Parson described Mr Roberts as “old school” and said he would “always defend his home” if faced with fire.

“He believed you don’t run from anything,” she said.

Three other Victorians remain unaccounted for, and Premier Daniel Andrews said authorities held “grave fears” for their safety.

Mr Andrews also conceded the number might rise as isolated communities were reached in the coming days.

In NSW, at least seven people have died since Monday and two other people are missing after an inferno engulfed large swaths of the state’s south coast on New Year’s Eve.

Father and son Robert and Patrick­ Salway, 63 and 29, died near the fire-ravaged town of Cobargo on Monday evening while defending their dairy farm at Wandella.

Patrick’s widow, Renee, said she was “broken”. “I love you now, I love you still, I always have and I always will,” she wrote.

The third victim of Tuesday’s fire was found at 7.30am on Wednesday in a burnt-out car at Yatte Yattah near Lake Conjola off the Princes Highway, and is yet to be formally identified.

Police confirmed another three bodies were found on Wednesday: one in a vehicle at Sussex Inlet, another by ambulance officers outside a home at Coolagolite and a 70-year-old man was found outside a home at Yatte Yattah.

All are yet to be identified.

Col Burns, a 72-year-old off-duty firefighter, remains missing at Belowra, west of Narooma, while a 70-year-old woman is missing after her home in Conjola Park was destroyed by fire on Tuesday.

The NSW Rural Fire Service has conceded that the death toll is likely to climb.

“This is by no means the end of the losses, just simply because crews are still out assessing,” RFS Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers said.

Bega MP Andrew Constance urged holidaymakers to flee the state’s south coast before con­ditions deteriorated on Saturday.