Esther Wallace remains missing in Federal Falls after 24 hours of searching

At about 8am on Wednesday, emergency services responded to reports that a woman had become separated from a companion whilst bushwalking at Federal Falls through the Mount Canobolas State Recreation Area, approximately 20km south-west of Orange.

Officers from Central West Police District supported by the Police Rescue and Bomb Disposal Unit, PolAir, Chifley Rural Crime Investigators as well as the State Emergency Services, Cabonne Council, NSW Parks and Wildlife Service and Forestry NSW commenced a large-scale search of the area.

SES unit commander in Orange, Rob Stevens, confirmed that as of 10am on Thursday, the woman had still not been found and that emergency services had recommenced the search.

"There is a pretty defined track that goes down there and they are doing a lot of pushing through some pretty hard bush that's on the side to see if she might have fallen off the side of the track," he said.

"I believe today's searching is a combination of on foot and vehicle searching around some more of the vehicle tracks in case she got a distance from there.

"They covered a good portion of that area on Wednesday and into last night. Now it's basically trying to radiate that out."

The missing woman - Esther Wallace - is described as a 47-year-old, Caucasian with blonde hair.

She was wearing an orange jacket, black pants and sandals.

While there was no specific area for where they believed the woman went missing, Mr Stevens said they were focusing their efforts between the Federal Falls carpark and the actual Federal Falls themselves.

"That is a fairly large area, it's a couple of kilometres from the carpark to the falls themselves," he said.

"As with a lot of missing person searches, you're ticking off high probability areas first and basically cascading out to lower probability areas from that and simply going through and cleaning through all of those areas to see if somebody is there."

Police are urging people to be on the look out for Esther in the event that she has left the area and made her way into Orange.

With more than 24 hours having passed since the woman's disappearance, Mr Stevens said the next 24 were crucial.

"Without knowing this lady's health conditions, this time of year, without appropriately warm clothing at night and more critically water, you want to be looking at trying to get some sort of idea where they are within the first 48 hours," he said.

"That's assuming the person lost is uninjured. A good rule of thumb is 48 hours at this time of year, you really want to be finding something."

Anyone with information on Esther's whereabouts are urged to contact Orange Police Station or Crime Stoppers 1800 333 000.

Anyone with information about this incident is urged to contact Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000 or https://nsw.crimestoppers.com.au. Information is treated in strict confidence. The public is reminded not to report information via NSW Police social media pages.

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