Australian Firefighter Gives Surviving Koala Water from a Bottle

First-hand video shows an Australian firefighter finding a lone koala amid the charred remnants of a forest. He’s a lucky survivor of the brush fires that have swept the country for the past few days.

“It was amazing, he turned around, sat on his bum and sort of looked at me with (a look) like, put me out of my misery,” firefighter David Tree said. “I yelled out for a bottle of water. I unscrewed the bottle, tipped it up on his lips and he just took it naturally.

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“I love nature, and I’ve handled koalas before. They’re not the friendliest things, but I wanted to help him,” continued Tree. “He kept reaching for the bottle, almost like a baby.”

While an estimate on how many animals have been killed in the fires will be hard to come by, sheep and cows have died across the countryside. Koalas can be particularly vulnerable because they cannot move fast on the ground.

This koala was immediate seen by animal care officials who treated him for severe burns on his paws. They expect him to fully recover and be returned into the wild.

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