Smoke from the the Australian bush fires larger than the United States
The smoke cloud created from the Australian bush fires is now larger than the United States.
Bushfires raging across Australia have burned more than 12 million acres—an area approximately the size of the U.S. states of Vermont and New Hampshire combined. The smoke from the blazes in the southwest of the country is visible from space, and it is spreading so far that it is causing haze in New Zealand more 1,000 miles away.
The fire season in Australia is far from over, and already it is shaping up to be one of the most intense in the country’s history.
“The intensity, the scale, the number, the geographical range, the fact that they’re occurring simultaneously, and the sorts of environments that are burning are all extraordinary,” David Bowman, a professor of pyrogeography and fire science and the director of the Fire Centre Research Hub at the University of Tasmania, tells TIME.
“We’re in the middle of a war situation…mass evacuations, the involvement of the military, hugely exhausted firefighting campaigns, it’s difficult to explain.”
The bushfires have caused at least 19 deaths and dozens of people are missing. Hundreds of homes destroyed have been destroyed. The military has deployed ships and aircraft to bring supplies to towns ravaged by the fires, and to evacuate residents who were cut off by the flames.
Starting Saturday, conditions are expected to worsen again, with hot weather that will likely intensify the fires.
Here’s what to know about the crisis that’s unfolding in Australia.
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How extensive are the fires?
About 12.35 million acres of land have burned across Australia, according to the Associated Press. By comparison, wildfires in California in 2018—which the California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection says was “the deadliest and most destructive wildfire season on record” in the state—burned an area of less than 2 million acres.
A map maintained by researchers shows large areas of Australia were burned in 2019, with much of the damage in the last month.
Bushfire risk is currently the highest in New South Wales and Victoria, the most populous states, during Australia’s summer, which runs from December to February, but a state of emergency had already been declared in New South Wales in mid-November over the fires this season. In southern Australia and Tasmania, fire season continues into the fall.
A map shows land burned by fires in Australia by month during the year 2019.
Landgate's MyFireWatch
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At least 200 fires were burning in Australia as of Friday. This week alone, 10 deaths have been confirmed in Victoria and New South Wales.
A fire tracker map maintained by researchers in Western Australia shows fires burning across the country, with fires raging on the southeast coast of Victoria.
Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews on Thursday declared a state of disaster for several areas, and authorities are calling for the evacuation of large areas of the state. Andrews said on his Twitter account that 28 residents of the state are missing.
In the resort town of Mallacoota, where earlier this week some 4,000 residents were forced to flee to the shores as winds pushed a fire through the area, the military is assisting with evacuations.
Australia’s Minister for Defense posted photos on Twitter of Mallacoota residents being evacuated.
The fires are going to get worse
Although conditions had cooled in Australia this week, more hot weather is expected to exacerbate the crisis over the weekend. Victoria’s Bureau of Meteorology predicted “severe” and “extreme” fire danger ratings for several parts of the state due to hot temperatures and changes in the wind.
Bowman, the researcher in Tasmania, says that the scale of fires already burning means that when the weather heats up, fires intensify quickly.
“Every time you get the weather set up, as we’re entering in the next 24 hours, the fires just explode again and you have even bigger fires and new fires and new fire fronts and new lightening strikes…it’s a diabolical ratchet.”
New South Wales’ Rural Fire Service posted a map of current areas burned and expected spread of the fire on Saturday.
Bowman says that there are other bushfire prone areas that may be in danger.
“Here in Tasmania, the whole of the east coast could blow up. There’s a big chunk of forest around Melbourne, tall forests around Melbourne…in southwestern Australia there’s still plenty to burn,” Bowman says.
“The door is open and we have no idea where this is going to end,” he says. “Most of Australia’s vegetation is highly flammable, the fire has plenty to go, it has capacity to keep burning, it’s not going to run out of fuel.”
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