Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
At least nine people have died since Christmas Day, and the RFS is urging people to evacuate the New South Wales South Coast before dangerous conditions on the weekend. Follow the live news and latest updates today
Yesterday, residents in the isolated community of Cann River were expressing concern about food shortages and other supply issues. Some told media they felt they were being forgotten.
The town is along the Princes Highway between Orbost and Mallacoota and has been cut off due to the fires.
But Constance adds, “once this (the fires) all goes, please come back”.
Tourism is crucial to communities on the south coast, which rely on the extra business during the holiday period.
Scott Morrison’s government under pressure as fires feared to have killed 17 people
Navy ships and army aircraft have been dispatched to help fight devastating bushfires on Australia’s south-east coast that are feared to have killed at least 17 people, amid a spiralling debate over the government’s stance on the climate emergency.
Thousands of people have fled apocalyptic scenes, abandoning their homes and huddling on beaches to escape raging columns of flame and smoke that have plunged whole towns into darkness and destroyed more than 4m hectares of land.
Yep - locals on the ground told @abccanberra Drive this evening that about 50 of 60 homes in North Rosedale are gone. About a third of the homes in South Rosedale. Unconfirmed, but solid local sources. One of the prettiest, loveliest places on earth. So very, very horrible. https://t.co/fL5qn0dKFV
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.
There are fears that many houses may have been lost on a horrific day in Victoria and Tasmania, with more extreme weather forecast for New Year’s Eve
One firefighter has died and multiple properties are feared lost after terrifying bushfires driven by extreme weather conditions swept across four Australian states on Monday.
The volunteer firefighter from the New South Wales Rural Fire Service died when a truck rolled near Jingellic, about 70km east of Albury, on the border with Victoria. The RFS said two trucks, including the one in which the firefighter died, had been overturned by high winds. Two others suffered burns in the crash.
Visitors and residents told to ‘get out of’ an area half the size of Belgium immediately, in the face of historic fire threat day on Monday
Victorian authorities have told thousands of visitors and residents in East Gippsland – an area half the size of Belgium – to leave immediately in the face of a looming bushfire threat.
Emergency management commissioner Andrew Crisp issued the order on Sunday ahead of what the Bureau of Meteorology has called one of the “significant fire weather days in Victoria’s history”.
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
Firefighters are bracing for extreme conditions with high temperatures forecast for next few days
Rainfall over parts of eastern Australia during the Christmas break did little to extinguish some of the country’s major bushfires, ahead of worsening conditions and a heatwave due to arrive in the coming days.
About 70 bushfires continue to burn throughout New South Wales, despite modest rainfall in some fire-affected parts of the state, while firefighters continued to battle a large blaze in South Australia on Boxing Day.
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.
Record low rainfall has contributed to a continent-scale emergency that has burned through more than 5m hectares and alarmed scientists, doctors and firefighters
As the area burned across Australia this fire season pushes beyond five million hectares, an area larger than many countries, stories of destruction have become depressingly familiar.
At the time of writing, nine people have been killed. Balmoral, in the New South Wales southern highlands, is the latest community affected in a state where up to 1,000 homes have been destroyed. A third of the vineyard area and dozens of homes were razed in the Adelaide Hills. It is too early for a thorough examination of the impact on wildlife, including the many threatened species in the fires’ path.
Bushfires have burned 4m hectares and left nine people dead, and fire authorities say they ‘haven’t seen a season like it’
More than four million hectares of Australia have burned and nine people have died since September in an “unprecedented” start to the summer fire season.
Guardian Australia spoke to fire authorities in every state about what they expect to happen next.
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
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.
Using tactics straight out of the Trump playbook, the PM has mocked those who are outspoken
It is painful to watch political denial in action. Believe me, I’ve been down this road before. I lived through Aids denialism in South Africa and I’m witnessing denial again in Australia.
In the last few weeks, as fires have raged across New South Wales, and as the nation has grown increasingly furious about Scott Morrison’s lack of leadership, I have felt like I am in a time warp.
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.
Catastrophic conditions have been declared as bushfires sweep across parts of New South Wales and South Australia. The death toll and number of injured firefighters has risen as a severe heatwave continues. Two people were confirmed dead in South Australia on Saturday, homes were destroyed and communities evacuated as the prime minister, Scott Morrison, was due to return to Australia after cutting short a family holiday to Hawaii
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
Record temperatures and ‘volatile and erratic’ conditions as more than 100 fires burn across New South Wales
Three firefighters were hospitalised with severe burns and 20 properties estimated lost in a blaze south of Sydney as the bushfire emergency raging across the east coast of Australia reached a new crisis point on Thursday.
Record temperatures and gusty, damaging winds combined with the prolonged drought crippling this part of the world to create what the commissioner of the Rural Fire Service, Shane Fitzsimmons, described as “volatile and erratic” conditions as more than 100 fires continued to burn across New South Wales.
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.