Toxic bushfires blanket northern Australia

SYDNEY: Toxic haze blanketed Sydney on Tuesday, triggering a chorus of smoke alarms to ring across the city, as northern Australians braced for “severe” weather conditions expected to fuel deadly bush blazes.

Fire engines raced office- tooffice in the city center with sirens blaring, as inland bushfires poured smoke laden with toxic particles into commercial buildings.

A regional fire headquarters miles from the nearest blazes was reportedly evacuated, while mask-wearing commuters choked their way through thick acrid air and the organisers of a harbour yacht race said it was too dangerous to proceed.

“The smoke from all the fires is just so severe here on the harbor that you just can’t see anything, so it’s just too dangerous,” said spokesman Di Pearson of an event that normally foreshadows the famed Sydney-Hobart yacht race. “The vision is just so poor.”

Some of the city’s commuter ferries were also cancelled “due to thick smoke” and school kids were kept inside at breaktime as pollution levels soared far above “hazardous” levels.

For weeks the east of the country has been smothered in smoke as drought and climate-fuelled bushfires have burned, but the scale of the problem on Tuesday shocked even hardened residents.

Bruce Baker — an 82- year- old who lives in Gosford, north of Sydney — said he was skipping his daily morning walk because of the smoke. “This is the worst it’s been, for sure,” he told Agence France- Presse. “It dries your throat. Even if you’re not asthmatic, you feel it.”