Australia’s massive wildfires imperil thousands
Army reservists called up to help with evacuations
Sanctuary Point, Australia — As southeast Australia burned Saturday, the word carried on the wind was “unprecedented.” The continent has seen massive wildfire outbreaks before, but this one has been different. There are so many fires in so many places — about 200 at last count — and many are in novel terrain, including rainforests and the suburbs of Sydney.
The flames have taken the lives of a dozen people in the past week, killed untold numbers of koalas and other animals, destroyed more than a thousand structures, forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate, choked cities with smoke and rendered the famed Sydney Opera House nearly invisible on the city’s harbor. The smoke has reached the lower stratosphere and crossed 9,000 miles of ocean to pollute the skies of South America.
Saturday was one of the worst days yet in a stretch of dangerous fire weather — blazing heat, parched brush and winds that topped 60 mph. It was the hottest day on record in metropolitan Sydney, with the town of Penrith hitting 120 degrees, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The national capital, Canberra, set a record high with a temperature of 110 degrees.
The national government on Saturday began calling up 3,000 army reservists to conduct evacuations and help people in remote areas affected by the wildfire emergency. Roads have closed, and many residents and summer vacationers have been trapped in coastal towns and told to flee the flames by boat if there is no other option. More than 1,000 people and 113 dogs reached Melbourne on Saturday on two Navy ships, the Sycamore and the Choules, which evacuated them from seaside towns ringed by fires.
In southern New South Wales state, people in a 70-mile coastal stretch were warned it was too late to leave the area and told to seek shelter, as an outof-control blaze that had consumed more than 1,000 square miles of forest and farmland — more than 40 times the size of Manhattan — burned toward the Pacific Ocean and threatened to cut off escape routes. This season’s fires have burned through an area at least the size of West Virginia.
At Sanctuary Point, a normally bustling vacation town, 13 of the 18 shops on the main street were closed Saturday. Shopkeepers said the staff and owners had either left town or were preparing to defend their houses. Those who remained waited anxiously for a southerly change that could whip up the fire, and they kept watch for embers, which fire officials have said can ignite trees, leaves and grass up to seven miles ahead of a fire front.
Around midday, Helen Bowerman was pouring water into the guttering on her concrete-block and metal-roof house. With the air smelling of smoke, the 66-year-old said she was worried that tall trees on an adjacent property could catch fire and collapse.
Should the fire reach her, Bowerman said, she planned to dive into a large estuary next to her house. A neighbor had kayaks ready to go. “We all look out for each other and help each other out,” she said.
Farrugia Sammut, 82, said she had not been as scared since her childhood home in Malta was bombed during World War II. “We’re surrounded” by wildfires, the former factory worker said.
Saturday was one of the worst days yet in a stretch of dangerous fire weather — blazing heat, parched brush and winds that topped 60 mph. It was the hottest day on record in metropolitan Sydney, with the town of Penrith hitting 120 degrees, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The national capital, Canberra, set a record high with a temperature of 110 degrees.