Australian evacuee camps highlight climate fears
Spilling from burning alpine hamlets and coastal resorts in their thousands, Australians fled raging wild fires towing caravan sand trailers packed with pets, livestock and keepsakes.
The exodus was a poignant reminder of how even in one of the world's most advanced economies, areas can be reduced to the level of disaster zones with relief camps in the face of a changing climate.
For weeks, many of the displaced camped out on sports fields and parks - unable to access communities cut off by blazes, or with no homes to return to.
“We have always been aware that we are in a high-risk fire area, and obviously the risk is getting worse,” said Amanda Hopkinson, 48, who fled the settlement of Swan Reach in southeastern Australia on Dec. 30 as fires bored own, then returned, before evacuating again three days later.
She's keeping a caravan on a sports field in nearby Bairnsdale in case fires force her out again. With the southern hemisphere summer only midway through, that's a distinct possibility.
“February is when the really hot fire season starts, so no one will relax until after February,” she said.
Melbourne-based Kon Karapanagiotidis, who has assisted refugees arriving in Australia for about two decades as chief executive officer of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, spent two days helping to prepare meals at a relief camp in Bairnsdale, a city of about 15,000 people on the fringe of a fire-ravaged region in Victoria state.
“At work, every day we see people who are displaced, who are away from families, homes or communities and who are without a safety net,” he said.
“It's really stark and jarring to see that among everyday Australians.”
After five months of blazes, cooler weather has brought some relief to firefighting efforts, though now Australians are facing other natural hazards. Thunder storms have brought torrential rain and flash floods to parts of Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales.
Australia is the world's driest inhabited continent and experiences wildfires every year, but the scale of the crisis this season has been extraordinary.
At least 28 people have died as flames scorched an area the size of England. The bushfires may have released the equivalent of 900 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air - more than the nation's average emissions for an entire year, according to early estimates from scientists behind the Global Fire Emissions Database.
In the East Gippsland region where Hopkinson lives, state authorities took the unprecedented step before New Year's Eve of ordering more than 30,000 tourists to abandon summer vacations and leave the area.