Back-burning backfires

Efforts to prevent spread of massive bushfire end in destruction of 20 properties

EFFORTS by Australian firefighters to prevent the spread of a massive bushfire in the north-east of Sydney with controlled intentional “back-burning” has inadvertently started another blaze, damaging or destroying at least 20 properties, officials said.

The New South Wales (NSW) Rural Fire Service (RFS) said yesterday that fire crews lost control of the back-burning operation in the south of the Gospers Mountain “mega-fire” on Sunday afternoon, which spread to “emergency” level in the evening and continues to burn.

RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said the crews in the area were attempting to protect communities, “executing some very sensible, some very risky, some very challenging, decisions”.

“Unfortunately things don’t always go to plan and we’ve seen how quickly things can change and how destructive the consequences can be,” he said.

The fire has damaged powerlines and left 450 homes without power.

“The drought is having an absolutely profound effect on the vegetation and its flammability,” Fitzsimmons said. “We are seeing fire burn effectively unimpeded under windy conditions.”

His deputy, Rob Rogers, said “nothing is working out” for fire crews due to drought conditions.

Some of the properties belong to firefighters battling the blaze in the “mega fire”, which has joined several other bush fires in the region, and has already destroyed almost 380 000 hectares of land.

It is burning 70kms north-west of Sydney and has a more than 60km-long fire front.

Across the state, about 2 000 firefighters were battling 108 blazes yesterday afternoon, with the weather bureau forecasting severe heatwave conditions for most of NSW throughout the week.

The disastrous bushfires, which started early this year, have already burned more than 2.7 million hectares of land in eastern Australia since October.

More than 1 000 homes have been destroyed or damaged so far this fire season. Six people have died.

Meanwhile, more than two dozen groups representing doctors and health workers have asked the Australian government to announce a state of public health emergency to deal with the ongoing air pollution in Sydney and other regions due to bushfire smoke.

For weeks, a thick blanket of smoke has choked Sydney and parts of NSW due to dozens of massive bushfires.

Last week, it resulted in air pollution 11 times worse than the typical “hazardous” level, with authorities encouraging people in affected areas to avoid exercise and stay indoors with windows and doors closed.

“There is no safe level of air pollution,” said the 25-member group, including the Royal Australian College of Physicians and Australian Nursing & Midwifery Federation, yesterday.

Conservative Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who is a strong coal supporter, has refused to be drawn into a discussion on climate change’s impact on bushfires, even after Australian scientists said it strongly increased the risk of blazes, as well as the intensity and length of the fire season.

Last week, Morrison rejected any direct link between the bushfires and his climate change policies, saying the “drought, the dryness of the bush” was the biggest factor.

He also said climate change was a global challenge and “Australia is playing our role as part of this global challenge”.

But the medical and health groups urged politicians to “acknowledge the health and environmental emergency of climate change”, saying that the extreme weather was “having devastating impacts on human health”. |