Meet Billy, The Gentle Koala Who Burned All 4 Paws In Australian Wildfire And Stole His Rescuers’ Hearts

The koala population has been severely affected by the fires that are still raging in Australia; thousands of koalas have died as a result of incineration, burns and smoke inhalation.

It’s an unbelievably tragic situation, but people are refusing to give up and are fighting hard to save as many koalas as they can.

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Lucy and Adam Francis are two of the people who have poured their heart and soul into saving the koalas.

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Billy was rescued from a scorched tree in the fire-stricken Kenton Valley. He had burns to all four of his paws and was in desperate need of medical attention.

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Billy received bandages for his burned paws as well as daily treatments and was closely monitored. As 1300Koalaz explained in their post, infections from burns are a serious hazard and can end up killing the afflicted koalas.

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Since Billy’s paws were burned and covered in bandages, he couldn’t climb and wasn’t suited to live in Lucy and Adam’s normal koala enclosure. Therefore, they built Billy his own little enclosure in the kitchen where they could keep a close eye on him. After a while, Billys burns had healed enough for him to receive a new set of bandages that left his claws out in the open which would enable him to climb.

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Lucy and Adam have taken extremely good care of Billy while they’ve nursed him back to health and have become completely smitten by the sweet little guy. Lucy told the Dodo that Billy is one of the sweetest koalas she’s ever handled and marveled at his gentle nature. Even when they need to rub cream into his blisters and burns, Billy is never aggressive, but behaves more like a child who doesn’t want the medicine, trying to gently hold his human friends’ hands with his paws.