Australia fires: news and updates

The ongoing bushfires that have devastated Australia closed in on the country’s capital, Canberra, on Friday as it declared its first state of emergency since 2003.

The Rural Fire Service of New South Wales, the state surrounding the capital, warned of severe fire danger for the Australian Capital Territory, with flames and embers projected to spread well inside the region on Saturday. The territory is home to more than 400,000 residents, and nearly half of it is at risk of “ember attack” and flames.

The raging bushfires in Australia have been unimaginably devastating for the whole country — at least 29 people have been killed, over 2,500 homes and 27 million acres have gone up in flames, and 1 billion animals are estimated dead.

What has received far less attention in the media is how the fires have affected the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. The fires are concentrated in New South Wales, which is home to the largest population of Indigenous people in Australia.

For much of January, it’s been impossible to turn on the news without seeing bright red images from Australia of trees engulfed in flames, families being evacuated, and people in face masks braving thick walls of smoke. Videos of kangaroos looking for refuge on neighborhood lawns have gone viral, while images of koalas drinking out of rescue workers’ water bottles (perhaps dangerously) have tugged at heartstrings far and wide.

Yet even as the Australian wildfires continue to be vast and devastating, it remains difficult to comprehend their full impact.

Since September, at least 27 million acres of Australia have burned in one of the country’s worst fire seasons on record. That’s an area larger than Portugal, and more than 14 times the area that burned in California in 2018, the state’s most destructive year for wildfires.

The fires have now killed at least 29 people and destroyed some 2,500 homes. The destruction to the country’s land and biodiversity is harder to fathom. An estimated 1.25 billion animals have been lost, and scientists fear long-term damage to many sensitive ecosystems.

Australia’s recent fire season has been hellish, and there’s no end in sight. At least 17.9 million acres have burned, 28 people have died, and an estimated 1 billion animals have been lost.

But while Australia burns, East Africa has been grappling with record-breaking rainfall leading to catastrophic floods. Both have a common cause — and it lies in the Indian Ocean.

The gargantuan bushfires across Australia continue to rage. They’ve burned at least 17.9 million acres, destroyed more than 3,000 homes, and killed at least 28 people since September. The choking smoke from these blazes is causing a health crisis and has literally circled the world. At the Australian Open in Melbourne this week, Slovenia’s Dalila Jakupovic forfeited her match after keeling over as smoke from the wildfires permeated the tennis stadium and made it difficult for her to breathe.

Australia’s bushfires and the conditions behind them are alarming and unprecedented, but not unexpected. Australia is warming faster than the global average due to climate change, and parts of the country are getting drier.

This fire season has been one of the worst on record in Australia. So far, an area the size of Portugal has burned, and 1 billion animals are estimated to have died — among them, the koala. Slow-moving and dependent on the forest, koalas have been especially hard hit, with an estimated 8,000 lost in New South Wales alone.

Koalas were already threatened before these fires broke out. For decades, humans have hunted koalas for their pelts and destroyed their habitats through deforestation. As a result, the population has dropped dramatically. Between 1788 and 2010, the koala population in Australia decreased by 95 percent. But after this year’s fire season, experts believe koalas are now in danger of extinction — unless policy changes are put in place to save them.

On Sunday, Jeff Bezos announced that Amazon will donate $690,000 ($1 million Australian) in assistance to wildfire recovery after Australia’s devastating bushfires. Twenty-eight people and more than one billion animals have died in the fires, which have burned an estimated 15.6 million acres of land.

All around the world, people have come together to raise money to help — from the band Metallica to Kylie Jenner to national governments to do-gooders on Twitter.

The world is watching our country burn. More than 17.9 million acres have gone up in flames since September, an area 15 times the Amazon fires. At least 27 people have died. A billion animals and 2,000 homes may have been lost. And we are only about halfway through the fire season.

A complex interplay of weather phenomena and systems — including a positive-phase Indian Ocean Dipole, the cycle of the temperature gradient between the eastern and western parts of the Indian Ocean — has created the tinder-dry landscape. But the record temperatures and drought conditions linked to climate change have vastly intensified the fires.

Australia’s wildfires have been terrifying to watch. It’s one of the country’s worst fire seasons on record: 17.9 million acres have burned. That’s an area larger than West Virginia, and more than nine times the area that burned in California in 2018, the state’s most destructive year for wildfires.

People have been forced out of their homes, and at least 27 have died. It’s a serious humanitarian disaster. But perhaps the greatest damage is to wildlife. An estimated 1 billion animals have been lost, and scientists fear long-term damage to many sensitive ecosystems.

A false claim that a big wave of arson is driving Australia’s raging bushfires has gone viral this week on social media, particularly among climate skeptics grasping for a counter-narrative about the wildfire disaster.

Donald Trump Jr. and Sean Hannity were among the most prominent tweeters this week of the allegation that close to 200 people in Australia have been charged with arson for deliberately lighting brushfires. Other people on the right, as well as bots trying to amplify climate skepticism, jumped on board with the hashtag #ArsonEmergency.

A series of devastating wildfires have burned millions of acres in Australia. Across the continent, an estimated 1 billion animals have been killed, and fire officials say some individual blazes will continue burning for months. As the crisis garnered global attention this past week, a 20-year-old model has gone viral for incentivizing her followers to donate to approved Australian charities — by sending fans explicit photos for every $10 they give, provided they send her confirmation of the donation.

Kaylen Ward, a California resident who calls herself the Naked Philanthropist, has raised, by her estimates, more than $1 million in contributions to Australian charities and evacuation centers, such as the Australian Red Cross and WWF (formerly the World Wildlife Fund). Ward told the Guardian that since she had a dedicated follower base from modeling and selling nude content, she hoped to urge them to contribute money to the fire relief efforts.

The devastating bushfires across Australia have cemented the fact that the country is on the front lines of a major climate-linked disaster, one that scientists saw coming and one that will only get worse from here.

The fires have already torched an area larger than West Virginia, destroyed 2,000 homes, and killed at least 26 people since igniting in September. The blazes clouded the skies above cities like Canberra and Sydney, creating some of the worst air pollution in the world. The swirling smoke is so dense, satellites can see it from space.

As fires continue to rip through Australia, some devastating numbers are emerging: At least 24 people killed. More than 15.6 million acres torched. Over 1,400 homes destroyed. And, according to one biodiversity expert’s count, an estimated 1 billion animals killed.

That last number is staggeringly huge, and has begun to make the rounds on social media. You might be wondering: How are so many animals dying? And how do we know the number of animals killed?

Bushfires continue to rage in Australia this week, even as an area larger than West Virginia has been torched since the current round of blazes ignited last September.

It’s already one of Australia’s worst fire seasons on record and the deadly heat, wind, smoke, and flames show no signs of letting up through the week. Over the weekend, high winds spread massive smoke plumes, triggering storms and impeding firefighters.

The massive bushfires in Australia are still spreading as heat, high winds, and dry weather push flames through much of the southeastern part of the country.

The blazes have proved deadly and destructive, burning through more than 15.6 million acres, or more than 24,000 square miles, an area larger than the state of West Virginia. The fires have now killed at least 24 people and destroyed more than 1,400 homes.