Devastating wildfire in Australia leads the officials to declare a new state of emergency as wildfires ravage the south-eastern part of the country, ripped through koala habitats as well as the dense neighborhoods in a region that was popular with foreign tourists.
There are several fires that have devastated the states of New South Wales and Victoria since November, tearing across more than 10 million acres, abolishing more than 1,000 homes as well as killing at least 18 people in these deadly blazes. This state of emergency is the third in as many months.
With the help of this article, we are going to talk about some things that everyone needs to know about the deadly wildfire.
Fire Started By Lightening
The government has blamed a lightning storm for sparking nearly 200 wildfires earlier this week.
But at the same time, the conditions were worsened by other unusual weather, which includes extreme winds, heat as well as drought.
In addition to that, the temperatures in Australia have been high, even for the summer, even rising above 100 degrees in some parts of the country over the weekend, which was just days before Australia noted its hottest year on record. Intense winds, on the other hand, have not only helped the fires to get spread but at the same time, they have led to the loss of life.
Additionally, last year was the driest for the country ever, because of which the severe drought also played a major role in this.
Climate Change Intensified The Fires, Experts Say
According to various experts, the main reason behind these fires was climate change.
According to Penn State University professor Michael Mann, who wrote in The Guardian this week, “Australians need only wake up in the morning, turn on the television, read the newspaper or look out the window to see what is increasingly obvious to many – for Australia, dangerous climate change is already here,”
His comments on the fire following a 2018 government report that states the changing climate of Australia might possibly result in natural hazards occurring at an “unimagined scale.”
The next year, a United Nations report also stated that Australia was one of the developed nations most vulnerable to climate change.
The former New South Wales Fire and Rescue Commissioner Greg Mullins very recently wrote in a November opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald that the blazes were “burning in places and at intensities never before experienced.” He blamed “an established long-term trend driven by warming, drying climate.”
Rising Death Tools
Due to these fires, there have been many people who have been killed, gone missing or have been displaced. Talking about this week only, there are at least seven people have been reported dead, and two were reported missing, in New South Wales. Moving to Victoria, there’s been a report of one person died because of deadly wildfire.
In addition to that this season, at least 1,298 homes have been destroyed, as per the New South Wales Rural Fire Service. There are thousands of people who have been evacuated from the most affected areas, while at the same time tens of thousands in another place were left without power.
Talking about the coastal town of Mallacoota, there are around 4,000 people who have been headed to the beach in order to escape the fire, only to be aground on the shoreline after being cut off by the blaze. The government, on the other hand, has since sent a Navy ship in order to carry people out in batches of about 800 at a time.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who has been severely criticized for his handling of this emergency situation, has now announced the deployment of 3,000 reserve troops to help the fire-fighting effort.
We’re putting more Defence Force boots on the ground, more planes in the sky, more ships to sea, and more trucks to roll in to support the bushfire fighting effort and recovery as part of our co-ordinated response to these terrible #bushfires pic.twitter.com/UiOeYB2jnv
— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) January 4, 2020
He took to Twitter to make the announcement, he tweeted, “We’re putting more Defence Force boots on the ground, more planes in the sky, more ships to sea, and more trucks to roll in to support the bushfire fighting effort and recovery as part of our coordinated response to these terrible #bushfires”
