Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Australian PM Scott Morrison says government won’t change its climate change policy as New South Wales premier says ‘not much left’ of town of Balmoral
The devastation from Australia’s bushfire crisis became clearer on Sunday, as the South Australian premier said 72 homes had been destroyed and his New South Wales counterpart revealed there was “not much left” of the town of Balmoral, south-west of Sydney.
It is feared the figures for homes lost may get much worse as authorities continue to assess the damage from Saturday, and with dozens of fires still active.
The Gospers Mountain fire has consumed hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest and is now threatening towns and lives
The fire is two kilometres away, but the heat is already beginning to warm the faces of those who wait.
The air is eerily still. There is no wind. There are no birds. There is no natural noise, just the distant chatter of helicopters in the sky, flying between water source and flames.
Catastrophic bushfire conditions expected for several SA regions, Queensland faces severe fire danger and Melbourne weather forecast for hottest ever December day, as Morrison says he ‘deeply regrets any offence caused’ by holiday. Follow the latest news and updates
Leighton Drury, the NSW state secretary of the Fire Brigade Employees’ Union and a serving firefighter, has slammed both the New South Wales and federal governments over what he calls a lack of leadership and resourcing.
Both the premier Gladys Berejiklian and the prime minister Scott Morrison have consistently said crews in the state have the resources they need to battle the more than 100 fires currently burning across the state.
But at a press conference today Drury said the union believed the state’s professional firefighting force was currently 400 staff short, and he’d been told some regional crews were facing further cuts.
Drury told media that senior Fire and Rescue NSW figures had told him on Thursday that two regional communities - Urunga near Coffs Harbour on the state’s mid-coast and Peak Hill, south of Dubbo - would have their minimum staffing reduced from four firefighters to two as a result of budget cuts.
Drury said the cuts were emblematic of a wider lack of resourcing within Fire and Rescue NSW, the state’s professional fire service.
The union estimates that since 2011 firefighter numbers have remained at best stagnant while the state’s population has grown by approximately 800,000. The union believes the state’s force is 400 professional firefighters short.
“I’m calling on the premier, the treasurer and the emergency services minister to get in a room with Fire and Rescue NSW we know we’re 400 firefighters short across the state, 300 in regional NSW,” he said.
“That’s just on current numbers, that’s not to deal with the crisis we’re dealing with right now.”
The state’s professional firefighters have been working alongside the Rural Fire Service volunteers battling the more than 100 fires currently burning across the state.
“The RFS are doing all they can but let’s be honest you can’t ask people to do things for free for months on end they have their own lives. We’re coming into Christmas, they have their own jobs, they’ve got to earn a quid which is why we need professional firefighters to take care of these fires.
“The RFS, they’ve been at this now for three months this is not just the last two weeks. These fires started in August. We’ve been telling the government since March. They’re not listening and they need to fix it.”
And there are still currently 100 fires burning across the state, with half yet to be contained.
There are 100 fires burning across the state, with half to be contained. Dangerous fire conditions forecast for Saturday - now is time to prepare. Schools are finishing up this week so review & check your travel plans along your route, & at your destination. #nswrfs#nswfirespic.twitter.com/0UAJR6mrul
Scott Morrison has apologised for going on holiday while Australia is in the grip of an extended bushfire crisis and a record-breaking heatwave.
In a statement on Friday morning the prime minister explained he had brought forward his leave with his family due to the need to travel to Japan and India in January.
Tuesday’s average maximum 0f 40.9C was Australia’s hottest ever and follows the driest and second warmest spring on record
Australia has just experienced its hottest day on record and its worst spring on record for dangerous bushfire weather, according to data released by the Bureau of Meteorology.
Preliminary analysis suggested that Tuesday was the hottest day on record for Australia, with an average maximum across the country of 40.9C. The temperature beat the previous 40.3C set on 7 January 2013, in a record going back to 1910.
BoM data says Tuesday’s 40.9C was the hottest average maximum across the whole country ever recorded, as extreme heat moves across South Australia to Melbourne, Victoria and Sydney, NSW, and bushfires continued. This blog is now closed
It is still unpleasantly warm here in Melbourne, and across much of southern Australia east of the Nullarbor. Fire activity is predicted to increase tomorrow and on Friday.
Here is a roundup of where things stand:
As of Wednesday afternoon there were about 70 bushfires burning across Queensland.
Up to 20 properties lost in Blue Mountains as megafire burns outside Sydney, while fires also threaten communities in Western Australia and Queensland
About 2,000 firefighters are currently fighting more 108 active bushfires in NSW.
The RFS have issued a new emergency warning for areas near Muswellbrook.
EMERGENCY WARNING - Kerry Ridge fire (Muswellbrook, Singleton and Mid-Western LGA) Fire activity increasing. If you are in the area of Olinda, Nullo Mountain and Bogee, watch out for embers that may start fires ahead of the main fire front. #nswrfs#nswfires#alertpic.twitter.com/6UEV0imNRS
More than 700 houses have been destroyed since the bushfire crisis began. What happens next for those who have lost everything?
One month after a bushfire burned the home they built from scratch in the northern New South Wales town of Nymboida, Stu Mackay is sifting through the rubble to find cast-iron tools. The tools are heirlooms, and the Mackays will need them to rebuild.
Theirs is one of 632 houses lost in NSW since Friday 8 November, when deadly weather conditions sent fast-moving bushfires through communities along the state’s north coast. Guardian Australia spoke to four people who lost their home or business on that first day.
Funding injection to National Aerial Firefighting Centre comes days after Morrison rejected calls for more help for firefighters
Australia’s aerial firefighting force has been given an $11m funding injection from the Morrison government amid growing concern about the resourcing of firefighters combating the bushfire crisis.
On Thursday the federal government announced it would nearly double the commonwealth’s annual contribution to the National Aerial Firefighting Centre, which coordinated the 140 aircraft used to battle fires across Australia.
Almost 3,000 firefighters across New South Wales will be deployed as more than 80 bushfires continue to burn and temperatures are expected to hit 40C. Follow all the latest updates
The Bureau of Meteorology says a southerly wind later this afternoon will help ease the smoke choking Sydney this morning, though it may not help firefighters battling blazes across the rest of the state.
A smoky start for #Sydney, with #smoke from nearby fires trapped overnight in a low-layer of the atmosphere, causing it to become concentrated. A southerly buster this afternoon will help reduce the smoke, especially nearer the coast. Health info re smoke: https://t.co/I3gS1GMBVApic.twitter.com/WJCrmDHsrv
As air quality plummets on the Australian east coast as a result of devastating bush fires, residents of cities clogged with smog share their coping strategies
The east coast of Australia is in the grip of a bushfire and air pollution crisis. But plummeting air quality levels are a regular occurrence in cities in India, Latin America and China. Here, residents and experts from Delhi, Beijing and Mexico City explain how they survive the smog.
Aerial footage captured a 'firenado' forming on Saturday in the Bundamba suburb of Ipswich, Queensland, as a huge fire rapidly advanced across dry grassland, threatening homes. Queensland state authorities have issued an emergency warning as the east coast of Australia works to tackle more than 100 bushfires
RFS says Gospers Mountain blaze, which has merged with neighbouring fires, will take many weeks to put out
A shipping container full of fireworks? Really?
This is from AAP:
A shipping container loaded with fireworks has exploded and residents have been warned to flee as an unpredictable fire closes in on homes in south-east Queensland.
The fast-moving blaze is burning in bushland at Bundamba, west of Brisbane, and travelling in a northerly direction from White Street towards the Warrego highway.
This, I fear, will be the trend for the afternoon. Across the east coast of Australia, fires worsening with strengthening winds, no respite in temperatures.
Watch & Act - Blue Gum Road (Tenterfield LGA) Fire is burning SW of Urbenville. Spot fires are starting ahead of the main fire front. If you are in the Wallaby Creek area, seek shelter as the fire approaches. Protect yourself from the heat of the fire. #nswrfs#nswfirespic.twitter.com/Fw0wlqMgOE
Gospers Mountain, Paddock Run and Little L Complex, Three Mile and Thompson Creek fires overlap, and there are now sevenemergency warnings in NSW as fire conditions worsen along Australia’s New South Wales and Queensland coasts. This blog is now closed
More than 10% of the area covered by New South Wales national parks has been burned in this season’s bushfires, including 20% of the Blue Mountains world heritage area, state government data obtained by Guardian Australia has revealed.
The amount of bushland destroyed within NSW national parks dwarfs that of the entire previous fire season, when 80,000 hectares were lost.
Raid and arrests of four volunteer firefighters were a politically-motivated attack, indigenous associations and campaigners say
The headquarters of an award-winning Brazilian NGO which works with remote communities in the Amazon has been raided by police, who also arrested four volunteer firefighters and accused them of starting wildfires to raise international funding.
At dawn on Tuesday, heavily armed police raided the offices of the Health and Happiness Project, (known by its Portuguese initials as PSA) in Alter do Chão in the Amazon state of Pará, seizing computers and documents.
For millennia, native people have used flames to protect the land. The US government outlawed the process for a century before recognizing its value
When Rick O’Rourke walks with fire, the drip torch is an extension of his body. The mix of diesel and gasoline arcs up and out from the little wick at the end of the red metal can, landing on the ground as he takes bite after bite out of the dry vegetation in the shadow of the firs and oaks.
“Some people are like gunslingers and some people are like artists who paint with fire,” he says. “I’m a little bit of both.”
Temperatures top 40C in Victoria’s north as up to 11 properties hit by fire in South Australia, while NSW and Tasmania face difficult conditions
Record-breaking spring temperatures helped spark and fan bushfires across the country on Thursday, forecasting a potentially devastating bushfire summer.
In Victoria, 100km/h winds fanned more than 60 blazes, as an unprecedented heatwave moved north to south, drawing comparisons with the “worst conditions you’d see in February or March” from the state’s emergency services minister Lisa Neville.
Extreme heat hits across the country as parts of Victoria prepare for worst possible bushfire conditions on Thursday
All of Australia’s mainland states, and the Northern Territory, had areas that reached more than 40C on Wednesday, as a code red bushfire warning was issued for parts of Victoria for Thursday.
By 3pm AEDT on Wednesday, the highest temperatures recorded were 43.4C at Smithville in New South Wales and 42C at Walpepup in Victoria. Ballera in Queensland reached 43.7C, Warburton in WA got 43.8C, Nullarbor in South Australia recorded 46.6C and Lajamanu in the Northern Territory had hit 42.7C.