Bushfires makes Melbourne air ‘worst in the world’
AUSTRALIA’S second-largest city, Melbourne, and other parts of Victoria had some of the worst air in the world yesterday due to smoke from bush fires burning in the state’s north and east, authorities said.
Melburnians woke to a second consecutive day of “hazardous” air quality, and by the afternoon the city had the worst air on the globe, according to world air quality database IQ Air Visual.
“Overnight for Melbourne, it did reach the worst in the world,” Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton told reporters. “Those conditions are obvious when there are cooler temperatures and the particulate matter can settle very low to the ground.”
The smoke delayed the first day’s qualifying matches for the Australian Open, and suspended practice less than a week ahead of the opening of the first tennis grand slam tournament of the year.
A thick blanket of smoke stretched from fire-ravaged East Gippsland to Geelong through Melbourne city and its suburbs. The smoke also set off false fire alarms in the city. People have been advised to stay indoors.
Sutton said even healthy people were at risk while the air quality level remained hazardous.
Dean Stewart, a senior forecaster for the Bureau of Meteorology, said south-west winds today would start lifting the smoke.
The cooler temperatures have also allowed exhausted fire crews to prepare for possible flare-ups, as well as ramp up relief and assessment efforts.
Yesterday morning, there were 16 fires still burning in Victoria, but none at emergency level. About 1.4 million hectares of land have already burned this bush fire season in Victoria and four men have died, according to the state’s Country Fire Authority.
Canadian and US firefighters are also helping in Victoria’s alpine region.
An elite team of American forest firefighters has joined the local Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMV) team to fight a mega-blaze in the state’s dense bushland.
Chris Hardman, head of FFMV, tweeted yesterday that one of the US crews had been cutting down trees that could pose a risk because they had been burned. They had also been “patrolling and mopping, feeling at home with their FFMV mates”, he said.
In New South Wales, more than 100 fires were burning, but all except two were at the lowest alert level. Much needed rain is expected across the state.
New South Wales Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said the rain was “the best news firefighters have had for many months”.
“If it’s falling on fire grounds, that will certainly have a positive effect right across the fire fighting effort,” he told Channel Nine television.
The smoke from the bush fires has already created massive issues in Sydney, Canberra and many Australian cities, reaching as far as New Zealand and even South America across the Pacific last week.
The US space agency Nasa said earlier smoke from the bush fires in Australia’s east would “make at least one full circle around the globe” before returning to the country from the west.