Areas of Australia have burnt during the recent bushfire season that used to be too wet to burn. In this first episode of The Frontline, a new series that shows how everyday Australians are already experiencing the climate crisis, we go inside the new fire zone
Continue reading...Category Archives: Wildfires
Fires and floods: maps of Europe predict scale of climate catastrophe
Without urgent action, rising sea levels by end of century could leave cities under water
A series of detailed maps have laid bare the scale of possible forest fires, floods, droughts and deluges that Europe could face by the end of the century without urgent action to adapt to and confront global heating.
An average one-metre rise in sea levels by the end of the century – without any flood prevention action – would mean 90% of the surface of Hull would be under water, according to the European Environment Agency.
Continue reading...Australia fires: threat remains for ACT bushfires as NSW issued with smoke health warning – latest updates
A total fire ban remains in place across the capital territory as fires continue to burn, causing severe smoke and dust haze in NSW
A quick recap.
Looks like the forecast rain is heading over Canberra. We’ll wait to hear if this helps or hinders the firefighting efforts.
Rain heading through Canberra. Let's hope this brings some relief. No sign of the storm yet though. pic.twitter.com/YVJDd3HK3u
Continue reading...Saving Tallabrook Lodge: the battle against Australia’s raging fires – in pictures
Guardian Australia photographer Mike Bowers and reporter Christopher Knaus joined the Cowie family defending their property about 100km from Canberra
Continue reading...Australia fires: bushfires menace homes and lives – and firefighters warn winds will create new threats
Embers flare into an out-of-control blaze on ‘another difficult day’ in NSW and in the country around Canberra
• Terror on all sides: inside a firestorm tearing through the Australian bush
The New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, says the Australian state has experienced “another difficult day” as multiple emergency fires burned across its south-east.
While five emergency warnings were in place on Saturday afternoon for blazes across the NSW south coast and south-east, at 9pm on Saturday evening just one remained at the highest level.
Continue reading...Canberra fires live updates: capital of Australia faces renewed bushfire threat – latest news
Huge fires to the south smother city with smoke amid weather forecast for heatwave and searing temperatures as Scott Morrison prepares to address National Press Club today. Follow live news and latest updates
From Tuesday night. A lot of ACT residents are comparing this fire to the devastating 2003 blaze.
Just a reminder of where we’re at. On Monday, a defence helicopter landed in the Namadgi national park, south of Canberra, and accidentally sparked what authorities have called the city’s “most serious” bushfire threat since the city’s devastating 2003 fires.
Tuesday saw dramatic images of the fire approaching Canberra’s southern suburbs, but conditions eased throughout the evening and the fire was downgraded from emergency level to watch and act just before midnight.
Continue reading...Australia fires live: Canberra airport closed, reports of air tanker crash in NSW bushfires – latest updates
ACT residents near bushfire south of Canberra told to seek shelter as contact lost with large water-bombing plane fighting New South Wales bushfire. Follow latest news and live updates
There’s a steady stream of people arriving at the Moruya Showgrounds, which has been re-opened as an evacuation centre. For a lot of people, it’s becoming a home away from home.
One woman from Congo, just south of here, told me it was her third time here since New Years Eve.
The sky is looking ominous outside the Moruya showground where our reporter on the ground, Michael McGowan, captured this image.
Continue reading...Huge dust storms in Australia hit central New South Wales
Videos posted to social media show the clouds turning day into night in some areas
Damaging winds produced by thunderstorms across central New South Wales have whipped up dust storms that turned daytime into night in some towns.
The Bureau of Meteorology issued a series of severe thunderstorm warnings on Sunday evening for inland NSW with the associated winds generating massive dust clouds.
Continue reading...Hundreds of thousands of fish dead in NSW as bushfire ash washed into river
Ecologist fears the Macleay River may take decades to recover, with heavy rains likely to affect other waterways
Hundreds of thousands of native fish are estimated to have died in northern New South Wales after rains washed ash and sludge from bushfires into the Macleay River.
Parts of the Macleay River – favoured by recreational fishers – have been turned into what locals described as “runny cake mix” that stank of rotting vegetation and dead fish.
Continue reading...Disinformation and lies are spreading faster than Australia’s bushfires
Social media claims of an arson epidemic and obstructive environmentalists have infected mainstream reporting of the bushfire crisis
Lies have spread faster than grassfire during Australia’s unprecedented national emergency.
They’ve ranged from the exaggerated to the outrageous.
Continue reading...Kangaroo Island bushfires: grave fears for unique wildlife after estimated 25,000 koalas killed
Greatest concerns for endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart and glossy black-cockatoo after third of island burned
Ecologists have grave concerns for the future of unique and endangered wildlife on Kangaroo Island where bushfires have killed thousands of koalas.
Fires on the island, in South Australia, have so far burned through 155,000 hectares – about one third of the island’s entire area – with blazes concentrated in the biodiversity-rich western areas.
Continue reading...Craig Kelly interview: Piers Morgan calls MP ‘disgraceful’ for denying climate link to bushfires
In Good Morning Britain appearance Australian Liberal MP accuses other politicians of trying to exploit tragedy
The Conservative Liberal MP Craig Kelly – a renowned critic of climate change action – has sparked a storm of controversy and been lambasted as a “denier” and “disgraceful” after telling UK television that there was no link between climate change and Australia’s bushfire crisis.
In a combative television interview with the conservative British commentator Piers Morgan and the meteorologist Laura Tobin, Kelly defended his view that climate change was not driving the bushfire crisis that has so far claimed 25 lives and almost 2,000 homes.
Continue reading...Australia, Fiji’s prayers are with you but we know they aren’t enough to fight the climate crisis | Frank Bainimarama
The summer has seen another cyclone in Fiji and terrible fires in Australia. We don’t need to be scientists to know that something is very wrong here
As the world rang in a new year, for Oceania, the images that marked the beginning of the decade weren’t ones of champagne and fireworks. Instead we were left with photos and headlines that merit not celebration, but mourning.
The skies of Sydney were stained an eerie blood-red by apocalyptic bushfires, as desperate Australians gathered by the ocean, waiting to be rescued by boat – conditions that threaten to worsen still. Glaciers in New Zealand were covered by a brown dusting of ash that had travelled thousands of kilometres across the Pacific. And in Fiji, we were left reeling by rushing floodwaters and howling, gale-force winds.
Continue reading...Paradise lost: residents flee Eden as Australia fires race towards them
Days of limbo wear down NSW-Victoria communities displaced by blazes ripping through swaths of east coast
Shelley Caban just wants it to be over.
“Sometimes I think, ‘Fuck it, just burn it all, the house and everything,’” she says. “It’s the waiting and the limbo, you just feel like anything has to be better.”
Continue reading...Scott Morrison announces recovery effort with ‘months to go’ in bushfire crisis in NSW and Victoria – latest updates
NSW RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons says he was frustrated to learn of ADF deployment from the media. Follow all today’s live news and latest updates
The situation is deteriorating in Eden on the Far South Coast. A bushfire moved quickly up from the NSW-Victorian border last night, as the southerly change moved up the coast and turned fires northward. The fire, dubbed the “border fire”, burnt last night from the Victorian border to Victorian Border to the southern shores of Twofold Bay.
It has already affected the areas of Wonboyn, Kiah, Narrabarba and surrounds. Properties have been damaged in the area and building impact assessment teams will be deployed to assess the destruction.
The border fire is now threatening the town of Eden. An update posted on the Bega Valley Shire Council’s website a short while ago warned Eden residents, including those in Snug Cove Wharf, to leave now and head to Merimbula or Bega. Authorities were still attempting to define the fire line near Eden.
NORTHERN TERRITORY
* No current bushfires
Continue reading...Australia fires live: NSW, Victoria and SA bushfires rage as PM calls up ADF reserve – latest updates
Scott Morrison has called up ADF reservists to help in the bushfire crisis. Two people have died in SA fires on Kangaroo Island, as New South Wales and Victoria face more horrendous conditions. Follow live news and latest updates
• Kangaroo Island fires: two people killed in ‘virtually unstoppable’ bushfire
• How you can donate and help the volunteer firefighters
We mentioned a little earlier *that* party political ad put out by Scott Morrison’s office spruiking their response to the bushfires. The reaction to the video has been, er, less than positive. The Australia Defence Association, a non-partisan defence watchdog and think tank, says the video’s use of military personnel is a clear breach of non-partisanship conventions that restrict the use of the ADF in party political advertisements.
1) Party-political advertising milking ADF support to civil agencies fighting bushfires is a clear breach of the (reciprocal) non-partisanship convention applying to both the ADF & Ministers/MPs. 2) Also cliche-ridden. 3) Its "defence force", not "Defence Force". #auspol #ausdef https://t.co/RlepHHbIx9
Wow. A self-promotional commercial with cheesy elevator music? This is one of the most tone-deaf things I’ve ever seen a country’s leader put out during a crisis. Shameless & shameful. https://t.co/ISgYEtlsb7
We are getting reports that people are being moved from evacuation centres in Eden, on NSW’s far south coast, towards Merimbula. Fires burning just north of the Victorian border, including the Poole Road fire, are spreading quickly and emergency warnings have been issued. The southerly change is generally moving those fires on the NSW-Victorian border to the north.
#firesNSW The message came through on local ABC there are buses evacuating 300 people and people have been told to evacuate to Merimbula from Eden.
Crazy day at Eden severe N westerly hit Eden this afternoon. Left the house as prepared as it could be and went to Eden evac centre. Ash and smoke severe and it was dark by 6pm. Settling in there then at 8 pm they ordered us to Merimbula as precaution.
Continue reading...Australia fires live: two dead in Cobargo as NSW and Victoria face bushfires threat – latest updates
Conditions worsen with more than 4,000 on the beach at Mallacoota in Victoria after a devastating day yesterday and the death of a firefighter in New South Wales. Follow live news and latest updates
The federal government has agreed to supply military vessels to Victoria for evacuations in coastal communities where people are trapped.
I’ve spoken with @ScottMorrisonMP & authorised #ADF to deploy extra assets to the Victorian fires: 3 helicopters & 1 aircraft will fly to East Sale; HMAS Choules & MV Sycamore will sail to East Gippsland. A Joint Task Force has been stood up with Army personnel & Liason Officers
#BREAKING: Naval vessels, military helicopters and fixed wing aircraft are being prepared for bushfire evacuations in Victoria, at the request of the State Government #auspol
“We’ve got fires burning from the Queensland border all the way down to the Victorian border, across the great dividing range,” says Fitzsimmons.
There have ben multiple challenges, he says, noting that today conditions didn’t allow for the flying of some aerial support craft.
Continue reading...‘We’re helpless’: thousands of koalas probably dead after wildfires – video
Up to 30% of koalas on New South Wales's mid-north coast may have been killed and many more may be endangered in South Australia in the country’s ongoing bushfire crisis after experts warned fires are the biggest threat Australian wildlife faces
Nationally, more than 5m hectares have been burned in an unprecedented bushfire season that has also killed nine people
Continue reading...As the long bushfire battle goes on in northern NSW, a brief respite for Christmas lunch
Two hundred people gather in Wytaliba, where rain has brought relief, but also more concern for the long-term effects of the fires
In the northern New South Wales town of Wytaliba, one of the areas hardest hit by bushfires that have killed nine people, destroyed a thousand homes and burned 5m hectares of Australia in the past three months, a small team has cooked Christmas lunch for 200 people.
Everyone is invited, from the dozens who lost their homes, to the volunteer firefighters, to the Canadian firefighting contingent who have been working to relieve local crews.
Continue reading...Australia fires live: NSW and SA count cost of bushfires after Balmoral and Cudlee Creek devastation – latest
Cudlee Creek fire revealed to have destroyed 86 homes in South Australia while 100 more estimated lost in New South Wales as residents wait to discover extent of devastation from weekend’s fires. Follow the latest news and updates
SA Premier and Governor tour the fireground in Woodside in Adelaide Hills #safires @abcadelaide @CFSAlerts pic.twitter.com/VRfRvWLdny
Many more homes could have been lost in the NSW town of Balmoral on Saturday when the RFS firefighting crew ran out of water.
Guardian Australia’s Helen Davidson reports flames began reaching 200m above the treetops and the town, which is on tank water, simply did not have enough to meet demand.
We were desperately trying to get more water into us, desperately calling for more to come in. A member from another brigade spoke to his boss about getting another truck into us really quick. That company saved a lot of homes.
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