Couple get engaged after home destroyed in Victorian bushfires
For Lachlan Molnar and Hailey McAlpine, welcoming 2020 has certainly been a bittersweet moment.
The young Victorian couple lost their Sarsfield home on New Year’s Eve as ravaging bushfires ripped through parts of East Gippsland.
However amid the devastation and while the broader coastal town of Paynesville, where they were located, was following evacuation orders, 20-year-old Mr Molnar proposed to his girlfriend of nearly five years.
“What a way to the end the year huh,” he declared on Facebook.
“I thought since we had the worst end of a year that I would help with making the best start to a new one.”
Ms McAlpine told the Herald Sun that she’d said to her boyfriend they had nothing to look forward to, prompting him to pop the question.
“This has made it a lot easier on the brain... it is now a better start to the year,” she said.
Ms McAlpine has since set up a GoFundMe page for her family as they count the cost of the destruction.
“Our parents are currently staying in a hotel which is definitely not a home,” she said.
And while the couple is grieving the loss of their home, their thoughts are with others across Australia’s southeast who haven’t been as fortunate as they have.
“At least I have my family and my now fiancee,” Mr Molnar said.
The deadly fires have burnt through more than 766,000 hectares across Victoria, with 47 fires currently burning across the state, mostly in East Gippsland.
So far confirmed property losses are 24 structures at Buchan, 19 at Sarsfield, 10 at Mallacoota and up to 15 at Cudgewa. Further property loss is expected.
On Wednesday it was revealed Victoria's fires claimed a life.
Mick Roberts had not made contact with family for more than 24 hours and on Wednesday his niece Leah Parson confirmed on the East Gippsland fire season 2019-2020 Facebook page he had been found dead at his home.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said Mr Roberts was one of four people missing in the Gippsland fires.
"That's the worst of all news,” Mr Andrews said.
Across the border in NSW, seven lives have been lost since Monday.
Residents and tourists are being urged to evacuate now as weather conditions are expected to worsen on Saturday.
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