Beauty Vlogger Chloe Morello’s house is destroyed as Australian wildfires brings ‘total devastation’ to her hometown

The beauty vlogger and YouTube star Chloe Morello’s home has been destroyed during the “apocalyptic” wildfires which ripped through her hometown and many others in New South Wales on Tuesday.

The millionaire make-up artist, now based in Los Angeles, posted on social media fearing for the safety of family members as fires ravaged the coast.

Ms Morello posted to her mother and sister had gone to their Surf Beach house to save photo albums and other sentimental items.

Her posts became more frantic as she asked her online followers the best way to protect from smoke inhalation as her family members prepared to make a run for the beach having been trapped by the spreading bushfires.

“So much of batemans bay on fire, if you’re in the area evacuate to a safe zone. There is a safe area across from our motel at Corrigans beach park (by bells carnival),” wrote Ms Morello.

“Our home in surf beach is burned but my family and pet bird are safe.

“Mum and Ellie grabbed sentimental things like photo albums etc. My father is returning from Victoria and left my Zias before we could tell him the fire had suddenly encroached on the bay this morning.

“Hoping he stops soon in a town safe and calls us. 

“Many homes lost in Catalina and up surf beach.”

As realisation dawned that her childhood home was likely now raised to the ground by the flames, Ms Morello who has 1.2million followers in Instagram, wrote another emtotional message.

“Batemans bay on fire. Our home s most likely burned down. So many people and animals affected. Seek safety by the ocean: Corrigans is one I know of. I love you all,” she wrote.

Another post said: “‘People are fleeing into the water. Our home is most definitely gone.”

“My family might have to run to the beach but it’s so smoky,” she wrote in another.

“They are at the family business right now but fire is getting closer, I’m petrified for them.

Her sister Ellie said they were preparing to run to the beach with “wet towels around our faces”, adding: “nowhere is safe”.

Ms Morello also retweeted a picture of the main street of Cobargo, north of Bega, burnt to the ground.

“Historic Cobargo gone. This is absolutely devastating,” she wrote. 

She also shared a picture taken during the Christmas holiday at their home and said she was grateful they had been able to celebrate an “amazing Christmas in Batemans Bay”.

Seven or more people are missing and feared dead and thousands have been evacuated to beaches as Australia’s most devastating wildfire season on record worsened.

Two of the missing were in Cobargo, near the south coast in the state of New South Wales (NSW), which was hit by one out-of-control fire which roared into the town, with its main street bearing the impact.

Further south, fires continued to blaze out of control in the state of Victoria, where some 4,000 people were forced to take shelter on the beach in the holiday town of Mallacoota, in the East Gippsland district along the Pacific coast.

Around 4,000 more people were sheltering in community centres in the town.

People in Mallacoota posted on social media about hearing the roar of the fire, circulating photos showing how, in the words of some, the smoke had turned “the day into night”.

Four people were missing in the area, where more than half a million acres of forest have been burnt out and where the intense heat and smoke from fires has been creating localised storm systems.

“Mallacoota is currently under attack,” Victoria’s state emergency commissioner Andrew Crisp said on Tuesday.

“It is pitch-black, it is quite scary… the community right now is under threat but we will hold our line and they will be saved and protected.”

Emergency services officials said it was possible towns in the Gippsland area could be evacuated by sea as the fires, fanned by strong winds, continued.

Another person was unaccounted for in the NSW town of Belowra.

As defence force personnel assisted firefighters and volunteers in tackling some of the worst blazes, eight fires were burning at emergency level across NSW, with a similar number ongoing in Victoria, and two more in the island state of Tasmania.

Residents in a handful of NSW coastal towns were also evacuated to the beach.

The death toll from more than three months of wildfires in multiple states stood at 10.