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posted by martyb on Thursday January 02 2020, @01:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the fire dept.

Bushfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia. They're Only Going to Get Worse:

Australia has deployed military planes and ships to provide aid as hundreds of wildfires rage across Australia, forcing residents to flee and destroying homes.

The Australian Defense Force is sending ships to the Victoria town of Mallacoota on a two-week supply mission and using helicopters to bring in more firefighters since roads were inaccessible, according to the Associated Press (AP).

On Tuesday, thousands of people from the town on Australia's southeastern coast fled towards the water as a fire ripped through the area.

Photos of residents taking shelter on boats circulated on social media.

[...] In New South Wales, where Sydney is located, firefighters are battling more than 100 fires, according to the state's Rural Fire Service.

Sydney's famed New Years Eve fireworks went ahead despite the fires. A petition calling on the government to cancel the display and give the funds to firefighters and farmers instead got more than 280,000 signatures.

[...] New South Wales' Rural Fire Services Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said this wildfire season is the worst on record.

"We've seen extraordinary fire behavior," he said Tuesday, according to the AP. "What we really need is meaningful rain, and we haven't got anything in the forecast at the moment that says we're going to get drought-breaking or fire-quenching rainfall."

More than 900 homes have been destroyed in the state, according to New South Wales Rural Fire Service.

A fire tracker map maintained by researchers in Western Australia shows that they are also threatening areas around every major city in the country.

Additional coverage:


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  • (Score: 2) by Kell on Thursday January 02 2020, @03:57PM (3 children)

    by Kell (292) on Thursday January 02 2020, @03:57PM (#938650)

    Canberra is surrounded by fairly spare forest and scrub. It takes a couple of years to grow back, but the big eucalyptus will take a bit longer.

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 02 2020, @06:21PM (2 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday January 02 2020, @06:21PM (#938727)

    Don't worry, it's not just brushfires wreaking havoc. Couple of years back the town of Palm Coast Florida got their first real hurricane with storm surge in centuries- how do we know? Well, for one, because the centuries old oak trees got their roots soaked in salt water and died right back to the flood line - that's something that hasn't happened since those trees sprouted.

    Google Maps street view [google.com] hasn't updated since the storm, but the aerial view [google.com] has.

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    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @08:39PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @08:39PM (#938799)

      That's likely because Florida is sinking though, due to pumping all that water out. If the sea rises a couple of inches and the land falls a couple of yards it's not the sea that is causing higher floodlines.

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by driverless on Friday January 03 2020, @11:32AM

      by driverless (4770) on Friday January 03 2020, @11:32AM (#939028)

      Naah, there's no climate change, that's just just fake trees.