30,000 PEOPLE ORDERED TO EVACUATE DUE TO MASSIVE BUSHFIRE RISK IN AUSTRALIAN STATE

Thu 28 February 2024:

Tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate due to a massive fire that Australian firefighters are fighting in some of the worst fire conditions the country has seen in recent memory.

Authorities on Wednesday ordered the evacuation of tens of thousands of citizens due to a massive bushfire across Australia’s southeastern Victoria state as hot winds and a potential thunderstorm threaten to aggravate fire danger, local media reported.

Around 30,000 people had been ordered to evacuate parts of Victoria before midday Wednesday as firefighters are battling the blaze amid one of the worst fire conditions the country has seen in recent years, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

Hot, dry and windy conditions have created “extreme to catastrophic fire dangers” in parts of Victoria and South Australia, according to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology.

Severe thunderstorms are also forecast in the region, which bring the threat of dry lightning – strikes that occur during a storm where the rain evaporates before hitting the ground.

“Today will be a very challenging day for firefighters,” Jason Heffernan, chief officer at Victoria Fire Department, told ABC television. “Today is one of those days when communities may need to take immediate action at very short notice.”

Hundreds of firefighters have been battling a bushfire that started last Thursday near the city of Ballarat, 95 kilometers (60 miles) west of Melbourne, and is “not yet under control.”

The blaze has already destroyed six homes, killed livestock and burnt more than 20,000 hectares (49,421 acres).

More than 100 state forests have been closed, the Forest Fire Management of Victoria said on social platform X. Dozens of schools and child care centers have also been shut.

The fires come more than four years since bushfires destroyed wide swathes of southeastern Australia, killing 33 nationwide, in what has been called the Black Summer wildfires of 2019 to 2020.

Experts have cautioned that Australia may have yet another disastrous fire season this year due to the combined effects of the underlying trend of human-caused global warming and the El Niño event, a natural climatic variation that can bring hot and dry weather to parts of the country.

Scientists predict that the likelihood of catastrophic bushfire seasons will rise as global warming increases the possibility of “fire weather,” which ignites larger, faster fires.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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