Bushfires: Kangaroo Island damage report due

A detailed report into fire damage on Kangaroo Island will be released on Monday.

Fire damage to a Vivonne Bay home on Kangaroo Island. Picture: Getty Images

A detailed report into fire damage on Kangaroo Island will be released on Monday, including fresh aerial observations showing some areas less damaged than feared.

South Australia’s police multidisciplinary rapid damage assessment team has been on the island since Friday working to determine the extent of the overall damage of the fires, which have burnt more than 210,000ha inside a perimeter of 500km.

In a statement, SA Police said the teams could access locations only once they had been declared safe, meaning it would be some time ­before a full assessment could be made.

Teams had been making assessments at the weekend, trying to gauge the extent of the overall fire damage.

“This has also included aerial observations, which have confirmed that some areas of concern have not been damaged as much as originally believed,” the police statement said.

Forty per cent of the island has been scorched and father and son Dick Lang, 78, and Clayton Lang, 43, were killed when their car was engulfed on the Playford Highway on January 4.

Travel restrictions to Kangaroo Island have been lifted, but Country Fire Service incident controller Ian Tanner asked for all non-­essential travel to be postponed.

“If you do need to come here to support relatives and friends, then it’s OK to come,” he said.

“But if you don't need to come to Kangaroo Island at this point in time, then please give us a bit longer to get this sorted.”

Localised flare-ups and warnings are expected to continue for a number of weeks.

The CFS has 180 firefighters on the island, assisted by Australian Defence Force personnel and other emergency services.