Flames bear down on Harrington, some 335kms northeast of Sydney, 8 Nov 2019
Wildfires
Flames bear down on Harrington, some 335kms northeast of Sydney, 8 Nov 2019
Comment: Again!? Valparaiso has been hit by major wildfires for the fourth time in just 5 years...
Houses burn during a forest fire at the Rocuant hill in Valparaiso, Chile, on December 24, 2019.
Hundreds of firefighters struggled to control the fast-moving blaze, which continued into Christmas Day and was made worse by dry weather and strong winds. Military units and helicopters were deployed to help battle the flames and residents were evacuated to shelters. The government regional leader of Valparaiso Jorge Martinez Duran said in a news conference on Wednesday that it is believed the fires were started intentionally.
Chilean Interior Minister Gonzalo Blumel said in a post on Twitter that authorities were working to investigate and "there will be no impunity" for those found responsible. Images show dozens of houses completely destroyed by the flames and residents tried to salvage any belongings.
© Mick Tsikas/AAP
Firefighters, many of them volunteers, are battling around 100 fires that have encircled Sydney amid drought and record-high temperatures
Firefighters, many of them volunteers, are battling around 100 fires that have encircled Sydney amid drought and record-high temperatures
Two volunteer firefighters died while battling blazes around Sydney, authorities said on Friday, forcing Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison to cut short a holiday in Hawaii that had fuelled public anger at the government's response to the crisis.
Australia has been fighting bushfires across much of its east coast for weeks, leaving eight people dead, more than 700 homes destroyed and nearly 1.2 million hectares (3 million acres) of bushland burned.
© AP Photo / Rick Rycroft
Thick smoke from wildfires shroud the Opera House in Sydney, Australia, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2019. Hot dry conditions have brought an early start to the fire season.
Thick smoke from wildfires shroud the Opera House in Sydney, Australia, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2019. Hot dry conditions have brought an early start to the fire season.
According to a report by AP, the air pollution in some parts of the city was 11 times worse than a 200 reading on the Air Quality Index, the threshold considered "hazardous," due to fine particulate matter being released by the burning fires. Fine particulate matter consists of microscopic solids and liquid droplets in the air that can be inhaled and even absorbed by the bloodstream.
© Reuters
The blaze was burning across 300,000 hectares within an hour's drive of Australia's largest city
The blaze was burning across 300,000 hectares within an hour's drive of Australia's largest city
New South Wales Rural Fire Service Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers on Friday said "there are probably more than eight fires in all" that have merged to form what has been dubbed a "mega fire" in an area of the national park forest.
The blaze was burning across 300,000 hectares (740,000 acres) - with a front roughly 60km (37 miles) wide - within an hour's drive of Australia's largest city, which was again subsumed in a soup of toxic smoke.
"There is just fire that whole way," said Rogers, who added that firefighters could do little more than get any residents out, protect property and hope for an end to fire-friendly dry and windy conditions.
© Noah Berger/AP
A helicopter drops water on the Cave Fire burning in the Los Padres National Forest above Santa Barbara, Calif., on Tuesday.
A helicopter drops water on the Cave Fire burning in the Los Padres National Forest above Santa Barbara, Calif., on Tuesday.
The Cave Fire, as it has been named, started out in the Los Padres National Forest and swept over parts of Highway 154 near Santa Barbara's city limits, forcing officials to shut down the highway until further notice.
Firefighters were unable to contain the blaze as of Tuesday afternoon, officials said at an afternoon press conference.
Thousands of people had to evacuate their homes just days before the Thanksgiving holiday.
An incoming winter storm, expected to hit this part of Southern California late Tuesday night and last to Thursday, may help firefighters rein in the blaze.
Flames bear down on Harrington, some 335kms northeast of Sydney, 8 Nov 2019
Melissa Price succumbs to pagan witchcraft:
"There's no doubt that there's many people who have suffered over this summer. We talk about the Victorian bushfires; (in) my home state of Western Australia we've also got fires there," [Melissa Price] told Sky News this morning. "There's no doubt that climate change is having an impact on us. There's no denying that."Let's look at her home state. After 67 years of fire management in the giant, hot, dry state of WA, the trend is clear — the more prescribed area we burn, the less wildfire does. In the graph below the prescribed burns declined for forty years and wildfires increased for thirty. After the Dwellingup Fire in 1961 the state ramped up the preventative burns, and reduced wildfires.
As the BushFireFront team say:
"We can't control the weather but we can control the fuel loads"
Tough call — what do we do, redesign our energy system, pay billions, change our cars, our houses and our light globes in the hope that bush fires will be nicer, or do we just go back to doing what we used to do that worked?
© Jo Nova
Comment: 'Uncharted territory': Out-of-control bushfires rage across Australia's eastern regions
Meanwhile Sydney is facing a 'catastrophic' threat as the Australian state declares a wildfire emergency.
NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said 'It's going to be a long, difficult fire season,' adding about a million hectares of land had already been scorched in the biggest firefront ever recorded in Australia.
Flames bear down on Harrington, some 335kms northeast of Sydney, 8 Nov 2019
More than 100 blazes were registered in the states of Queensland and New South Wales on Friday, with 17 fires in the latter state being described at one point as out of control and dangerous amid high temperatures and gusty winds.
"We are in uncharted territory," New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told public broadcaster ABC. "We have never seen this many fires concurrently at emergency warning level."
Comment: Poor koalas. Humans too: 3 dead and 4 missing so far. November is Australia's 'May', so their summer hasn't even officially begun, yet the sky looks like this:
© Rob Griffith/AP
Conservationists fear hundreds of koalas have perished in wildfires that have razed prime habitat on Australia’s east coast.
Conservationists fear hundreds of koalas have perished in wildfires that have razed prime habitat on Australia’s east coast.
Some 2,000 hectares of land were burned through in the blaze, around two-thirds of which was koala habitat.
The fire was started by a lightning strike on Friday near Port Macquarie, New South Wales.
Sue Ashton, who runs Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, said there was little optimism about the consequences of the fire.
"If we look at a 50% survival rate, that's around 350 koalas and that's absolutely devastating," she said.
"We're hoping it's not as bad as that, but because of the intensity of the fire and the way koalas behave during fire, we're not holding out too much hope."
She said the search for survivors would begin on Thursday.
© Nathan Edwards
Firefighters battle an out of control bushfire on the Lakes Way, Darawank, near Forster on the NSW mid north coast.
Firefighters battle an out of control bushfire on the Lakes Way, Darawank, near Forster on the NSW mid north coast.
The bushfire is easing NSW but it could be a torrid day in Queensland which is still seeing torrid conditions.
One blaze west of Tuncurry, near Forster, jumped a river on Saturday and began spotting across the township that is home to 6000 people.
Less than 10 kilometres further north, another blaze led to emergency warnings for Hallidays Point and Darawank.
Both fires were being fanned north overnight.
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