Australian mega inferno ‘too big to be put out’
AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Scott Morrison has paid tribute to hundreds of firefighters as they continue to battle massive bushfires wreaking havoc in the country’s east.
Morrison yesterday visited the control room of New South Wales Rural Fire Service (RFS) in the Hawkesbury region, where several bushfires merged last week to form a “mega blaze” in Sydney’s north-west.
“Our firefighters battling the bushfires are truly amazing,” Morrison later said on Twitter, adding that he had visited the RFS “to say thanks for everything they’re doing and to get the latest update”.
The Gospers Mountain mega blaze, which has merged with neighbouring fires and formed a 60km fire front, continued to burn yesterday. It’s about 75km north-west of Sydney’s city centre.
Authorities have said it has become
“too big to be put out” and will likely burn for weeks until substantial rain falls in January.
About 1 600 firefighters are battling about 100 bushfires across the state. Yesterday they were able to take advantage of “benign” weather conditions and conducted back-burning and established containment lines.
The worst bushfire conditions have been predicted for tomorrow, with heat reaching more than 40°C amid strong winds.
Sydney’s beach-goers found black ash and other debris on the city’s eastern shores yesterday due to smog from bushfires across the state, many sharing the photos on social media.
The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) said much of the state’s inland area would “swelter through a heatwave early this week with hot 40-plus-degree days and very warm 20-plus-degree nights”.
The air quality in Sydney, which has reached “hazardous” levels, eased yesterday, but in the state’s north, including Armidale, Dubbo and Canberra, it reached toxic levels, largely due to “an easterly wind change that pushed smoke from the NSW bushfires across overnight”.
More than 680 homes have been destroyed and 250 damaged by bushfires across NSW this bushfire season, which started early in October.
Six people have died and more than 2 million hectares of land across the state has already burned.
Meanwhile, the BoM also said 2019 was likely to be one of the hottest and driest years on record.
This as the regional government in Queensland announced plans to set aside more than half a million hectares of land area for koala conservation. Koalas’ habitat has been destroyed by the fires.
The dedicated area is more than twice the size of Paris. The government will limit land clearing to protect koala populations. About 300000 hectares of that area is a known as koala habitat.
In Queensland, koala populations have decreased by 50% to 80% over about 20 years, with about three quarters of essential koala habitat already destroyed. Environmentalists have said koalas are running out of places to live.