Wildfires threaten capital region

CANBERRA, Australia — The Australian capital region declared a state of emergency on Friday because of an outofcontrol forest fire burning erratically to its south.

It’s the first fire emergency for the Australian Capital Territory area since 2003 when wildfires killed four people and destroyed almost 500 homes in a single day.

The threat is posed by a blaze on Canberra’s southern fringe that has razed more than 53,000 acres since it was sparked by heat from a military helicopter landing on Monday, the Emergency Services Agency said.

“The state of emergency sets a clear expectation for our community that we need you to be vigilant,” said Emergency Services Minister Mick Gentleman. “This is the worst bushfire season in the ACT since 2003.”

The fire is burning at emergency level — the highest on a threetier scale of danger — and embers have created dangerous spot fires nearby, agency officials said.

Residents of southern Canberra suburbs and surrounding villages have been advised to prepare to evacuate.

The fire is the most dangerous of dozens of blazes burning Australia’s droughtstricken southeast.

Unprecedented fires across southern Australia have claimed at least 33 lives since September, destroyed more than 3,000 homes and razed more than 26.2 million acres.

The fire danger is forecast to escalate across the southeast in the Australian Capital Territory and the states of New South Wales and Victoria as summer temperatures rise over the weekend.