Category Archives: Bushfires

Australia fires live: Canberra airport closed, reports of air tanker crash in NSW bushfires – latest updates

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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.

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Will Australia’s wildlife recover from this bushfire season?

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Images of burned koalas and native animals fleeing the fire front have been beamed around the world. There are estimates that 1 billion animals have been impacted and experts fear that some plants and animals have been pushed to extinction. So how bad is the damage? And will Australia’s wildlife bounce back?

You can read Graham Readfearn’s articles on the impact of the fires on Kangaroo island wildlife, plus the mass fish kills in the wake of the fires.

Environment editor Adam Morton has written about the latest figures from the government on threatened species, and environment reporter Lisa Cox has written about the world heritage areas burned, plus a guide to the animals most at risk.

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Huge hail batters Canberra as severe thunderstorms hit south-eastern Australia

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Hail smashes into Parliament House and brings down trees in the ACT, with heavy rainfall hitting NSW, Queensland and Victoria

Australia’s south-east has been lashed by severe thunderstorms and large hailstones that destroyed buildings and cars in Canberra and left two tourists in hospital after they were injured by lightning.

Two supercell thunderstorms brought hail and heavy rain to cities and towns across the east coast on Monday, battering the outer suburbs of Sydney about 3pm, with 4.5cm hailstones recorded and strong winds bringing trees down over cars in the Sutherland area.

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Huge dust storms in Australia hit central New South Wales

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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.

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Man injured in New Year’s Eve Cobargo bushfire dies, as hail pelts Melbourne

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The 84-year-old dies in Sydney’s Concord hospital as Australia’s months-long fire crisis continues

The death toll from the unprecedented bushfires in New South Wales has climbed to 21 following the death in hospital of an elderly man burned in Cobargo on New Year’s Eve.

The 84-year-old was taken from his home on Tuesday 31 December to South East Regional hospital before he was transferred to Concord hospital in Sydney where he died in the early hours of Saturday.

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Hundreds of thousands of fish dead in NSW as bushfire ash washed into river

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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.

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Australian bushfires from the air: before and after images show scale of devastation

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Nine aerial photos depict the crisis from beach to bush, farm to forest, across NSW and South Australia

More than 10.7m hectares of land have burnt so far in Australia’s bushfires – larger than the total area of South Korea, or Portugal, and 1.3 times the size of Scotland.

The ongoing and unprecedented bushfire crisis has spread across six states and multiple months.

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Rain brings joy to farmers in NSW and Victoria and dampens some bushfires as others burn

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Fire-hit areas receive desperately needed rain, as severe thunderstorms cause flooding in Melbourne

Up to 50mm of rain has fallen across parts of New South Wales and Victoria, dampening bushfires even as dozens more continue to burn.

Fire-hit regions of NSW’s Snowy Valley and south coast, and Victoria’s East Gippsland and north-east, received as much as 15mm of desperately needed rain on Wednesday and Thursday, while severe thunderstorms caused flooding in Melbourne.

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James Murdoch criticises father’s news outlets for climate crisis denial

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Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Fox cited for ‘frustrating’ coverage of Australian bushfires

Rupert Murdoch’s son has strongly criticised his family’s news outlets for downplaying the impact of the climate crisis, as bushfires continue to burn in Australia.

James Murdoch and his wife, Kathryn, issued a rare joint statement directly criticising his father’s businesses for their “ongoing denial” on the issue, which has been reflected in the family’s newspapers repeatedly casting doubt on the link between the climate emergency and the bushfires.

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Legal questions complicate how Rural Fire Service can spend donated millions

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Experts warn donors should be aware that money given to the RFS can’t be used to help bushfire victims or recovery efforts

The New South Wales Rural Fire Service trustee may be unable to distribute donated funds, including more than $50m raised by the comedian Celeste Barber, to other states or to bushfire victims, legal experts have warned.

At least $70m has been raised for the RFS, other state fire services, the Red Cross and wildlife charities, as part of a global fundraising effort during Australia’s horror bushfire season.

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Australia bushfires are harbinger of planet’s future, say scientists

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Apocalyptic scenes give glimpse of what would be normal conditions in 3C world

The bushfires ravaging Australia are a clear sign of what is to come around the world if temperatures are allowed to rise to dangerous levels, according to scientists.

“This is what you can expect to happen … at an average of 3C [above pre-industrial levels],” said Richard Betts, professor of geography at Exeter University. “We are seeing a sign of what would be normal conditions in a 3C world. It tells us what the future world might look like. This really brings home what climate change means.”

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A billion animals: the Australian species most at risk from the bushfire crisis

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Fires take an enormous toll on wildlife, with huge numbers of mammals, birds, reptiles and insects killed

Australia’s continuing bushfire crisis has taken an enormous toll on wildlife, with huge numbers of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects and other species killed.

The ecologist Chris Dickman has estimated more than a billion animals have died around the country – a figure that excludes fish, frogs, bats and insects.

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Emergency payments for people affected by Australia’s bushfires ‘seriously inadequate’

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Acoss calls on government to boost the Disaster Recovery Payment after fires destroy more than 2,000 homes

Australia’s peak welfare body is calling on the federal government to immediately boost emergency payments for those affected by bushfires, saying it is concerned the current amount is “seriously inadequate”.

The Australian Council of Social Service chief executive, Cassandra Goldie, has written to the prime minister, Scott Morrison, with a range of recommendations the organisation says are urgently needed to help provide relief to those affected by the bushfire crisis that has destroyed more than 2,000 homes.

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Scott Morrison looks for wriggle room on climate as he detects the whiff of backlash | Sarah Martin

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The prime minister is clearly under pressure as the bushfire crisis lays bare the consequences of a warmer planet

It’s too early to say whether the prime minister, Scott Morrison, is speaking with a forked tongue when he says the government will “evolve” its climate change policy.

What appeared on Sunday to be a shift in rhetoric on the government’s emission reduction targets may be meaningful – or it may yet prove to be deliberately duplicitous.

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Roger Federer responds to climate change criticism from Greta Thunberg

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  • Credit Suisse closely linked with fossil fuel industry
  • #RogerWakeUpNow has been trending on Twitter

Roger Federer has issued a cautiously worded response to mounting criticism, including from climate activist Greta Thunberg, over his sponsorship deal with Credit Suisse.

A dozen Swiss activists appeared in court on Tuesday after refusing to pay a fine for playing tennis inside branches of Credit Suisse bank in November 2018, in a stunt intended to underscore Federer’s relationship with the Swiss financial giant, which is closely linked with the fossil fuel industry.

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Scott Morrison flags bushfires royal commission and says Coalition could bolster emissions reduction

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Prime minister acknowledges he could have handled things better in the ‘strained’ emotional environment on the ground

Scott Morrison has indicated the government could bolster its carbon emission reduction efforts as he flagged a royal commission into Australia’s horror bushfire season and warned of a “new normal” that will require a greater role for the commonwealth.

Speaking at length about the government’s response to the bushfires which have claimed 28 lives and more than 2,000 homes, the prime minister also acknowledged for the first time that he could have done better in the “strained” emotional environment on the ground, despite visiting affected communities “in good faith”.

“There are things I could have handled on the ground much better,” Morrison told ABC Insiders’ host David Speers on Sunday.

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Disinformation and lies are spreading faster than Australia’s bushfires

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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.

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Australia bushfires: firefighters injured amid push to contain blazes

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An off-duty volunteer firefighter in New South Wales was seriously injured protecting his own property and another four also injured

Australian firefighters are preparing to use one week of calmer conditions to contain the most volatile parts of bushfires that are threatening private property and destroying large swathes of national parks in eastern Victoria and southern New South Wales.

The state of disaster in Victoria lifted at midnight on Saturday morning after firefighters managed to slow the progress of a 60,000ha fire that threatened the Alpine townships of Bright and Harrietville in north-east Victoria on Friday night.

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Australia bushfires live: NSW and Victoria survey damage as fires merge to form new ‘megablaze’ – latest updates

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This liveblog is now closed

We will leave our coverage of the ongoing bushfire crisis here for the night. A mercifully quiet day on firegrounds across the country.

Here is where things stand:

We have a bit more information about the man who was burned while defending his property near Tumbarumba in New South Wales yesterday.

The man was an RFS volunteer, but he was not engaged in RFS work yesterday. Instead, Guardian Australia understands, he was driving a quad bike around his own property defending against spot fires when he received burns to his leg.

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Blazes flare amid extreme conditions in Australia – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. Our live coverage will continue tomorrow morning

We are wrapping up the live blog now, but we will be back at 7am AEDT for the latest on the fires.

As of 9pm, this is what we know.

There’s now what media (but not RFS) refer to as a megablaze in the Kosciuszko national park with three fires at emergency level in that area of southern NSW, just near the Victorian border.

There’s also concern that a fire at watch-and-act level in Faulconbridge in the Blue Mountains could worsen around midnight once the southerly reaches there. People in the Wentworth Falls and Leura areas are being advised to stay alert.

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