The volunteer firefighter who died in a freak accident was expecting his first child

A volunteer killed while fighting bushfires in Australia is named Samuel McPaul.

The 28-year-old died when his fire truck overturned in high winds at the scene of a fire in New South Wales on Monday.

Two of his colleagues were injured – one of them, a 39-year-old man, remains in hospital with severe burns.

Mr McPaul had been married to his wife Megan for almost 18 months and they were expecting their first child in May.

New South Wales Rural Fire Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said: “To lose one of our own in such extraordinary circumstances is simply tragic.”

“As you would expect, the family is grieving and it was a very difficult night – it’s fair to say I don’t even feel like I understand the extent of the tragedy and loss.”

“Megan and Sam have been married for almost 18 months now… so we have a completely devastated family, a devastated local community, it’s been an extraordinary loss.”

Mr McPaul is the third firefighter to be killed in the fires that have devastated parts of Australia in recent months.

Firefighters Geoffrey Keaton, 32, and Andrew O’Dwyer, 36, died in early December when their fire truck crashed into a tree south of Sydney and overturned.

The fires have devastated more than four million hectares of land, killed at least ten people and thousands of animals and destroyed more than 1,000 homes.

Firefighters from the USA, Canada and New Zealand helped their Australian colleagues.

In New South Wales, 2,000 firefighters are battling 101 fires, 49 of which are uncontained.

In the southern state of Victoria, all eyes are on Mallacoota, a small town in the East Gippsland region where 4,000 people have sought refuge on the coast to prepare for the fires heading their way.

Photos on social media showed the sky over the area turning with smoke, but Country Fire Authority chief Steve Warrington said three emergency teams were stationed in the town and would protect residents.

He added: “It’s pitch black. It’s pretty scary in this community. They are currently under threat. But we will hold our line and they will be saved and protected.”

He said people who chose not to follow advice were “taking their chances”.

However, around 30,000 holidaymakers were asked to leave East Gippsland – a tourist hotspot in Victoria – on Sunday, the local mayor said Many people had ignored the request and there was “no mass exodus”.

The Princes Highway – the main road in and out of the area – was closed and remaining people were warned to seek shelter as it was now too dangerous to be trapped on the road.

Four people are missing in Victoria. While officials said they were not firefighters, they could not say what part of the state they were from.

According to the state’s largest newspaper, The Age, 260 new fires broke out across Victoria on Monday, on a day when temperatures were believed to have exceeded 40°C (104°F) in every state in Australia, even in the normally cooler ones Tasmania.