Australian bushfires: the story so far in each state
23 December 2019
Published by https://www.straitstimes.com
AUSTRALIA – About five million hectares of Australia has 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.
New South Wales
The total area burned in NSW is 3.41m hectares, according to the Rural Fire Service. The scale of the bushfires is “unprecedented” for this point in the season, RFS spokeswoman Angela Burford said.
“To put it in perspective, in the past few years we have had a total area burned for the whole season of about 280,000 ha,” Burford said. “This year we’re at 3.41m and we are only halfway through the season.”
Six people have died. The total number of houses destroyed currently sits at 829, but damage assessments of areas affected by the catastrophic conditions on Saturday are still under way and Burford said that number could increase by “up to 100”.
The largest fire, Gospers Mountain, has reached 488,174ha. Conditions in NSW are expected to worsen again at the end of the week. Firefighters are conducting back burns in the Blue Mountains to protect property for when the fire flares up again.
Burford said the pattern of bad fire conditions interspersed with back burning in cooler conditions was likely to continue until late January, which is when the first substantial rain is forecast for NSW.
Queensland
Queensland firefighters have had their first few days of respite in six months, with increased humidity quelling fire activity. Areas are forecast to get between 20mm and 40mm of rain next week, but if that rain does not continue, the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services acting chief superintendent, Kevin Reading, said, the vegetation will dry out again and the fire risk will continue.
Readings, who has worked for QFES for 15 years, said he “hasn’t seen a season like it”.
“We are usually talking this time of year about cyclones and when they are going to come,” Reading said. “But it’s just continued on being dry with no signs of rain – until now, next week.”
The Peregian Springs fire on the Sunshine Coast and Mount Maria fire, inland from Bundaberg, have been contained, and Reading said he did not expect them to jump containment lines.
The total area burned since September is 249,604 hectares, with the loss of 28 houses and 58 sheds. If Queensland does get rain, it will send its firefighters south.
Victoria
Fires that are burning uncontrolled in East Gippsland will not be extinguished without substantial rainfall, CFA state control centre spokesman Luke Hegarty said. The largest, an uncontrolled fire in East Gippsland near Marthavale, about 230km east of Melbourne, is more than 50,000 hectares in size.
Firefighting efforts are focused on building containment lines and making the nearby community, which consists of isolated properties and small towns, aware of the risk. It is too dangerous to send fire crews in to try to fight the fire directly, Hegarty said.
Over 122,000ha has burned in Victoria so far this season. Statewide fire restrictions were implemented this week.
“Conditions are severe enough across the state that any fire that does start on the wrong sort of day is likely to spread and we are going to have difficulty controlling it,” Hegarty said.
South Australia
Fires that flared in catastrophic conditions in South Australia on Friday destroyed 86 homes, 500 outbuildings, and burned through 47,000ha, including up to 1,100ha of vineyards. The total area burned so far this season is 54,000ha.
One man died defending his home in the Adelaide Hills, and another man died in a vehicle crash in the fire zone. The premier, Steven Marshall, said it was an “absolute miracle” that more lives had not been lost.
He said he was “very concerned” about the long-range forecast for SA “which is showing that we are heading towards more difficult days towards the end of this year.”
“So it’s very important that we get as much work done as possible at this point,” he said.
The bulk of the damage was at the Cudlee Creek fire in the Adelaide Hills, which was not yet controlled by Monday afternoon. Alex Zimmerman was appointed to the role of disaster co-ordinator on Monday. He performed the same role in the 2015 Pinery fires, in which two people died. The response in that case took 19 months; Marshall said he expected the recovery process for Cudlee Creek to be equally long.
Western Australia
A slow start to the wet season has left Western Australia with a year-round fire season. Where usually fires in the Kimberley would be over by the time the southern half of the state is in a fire danger period, this summer they are both burning at once. Since November, about 1.2m hectares , one home, and 12 structures have been lost to bushfires.
“Approximately 90% of Western Australia is bushfire-prone, and every summer brings the possibility of severe bushfires,” fire and emergency services commissioner Darren Klemm said. “Like most of the country, WA has experienced unusually hot and dry conditions in the lead-up to summer, so we are expecting this season to be challenging.”
Klemm said fire authorities were trying to make West Australians aware that they could face the personal risk of fire, and to put a bushfire plan in place.
“Despite 97% of WA residents believing the state is at risk of bushfires, only 34% believe they’re at personal risk of being affected by a bushfire and just 18% have a bushfire plan,” he said.
Tasmania
About 150 firefighters from Tasmania are currently fighting fires in NSW and Queensland, the Tasmanian Fire Service chief officer, Chris Arnol, said.
Tasmania has had unusual weather patterns for the start of summer with westerly winds pushing across the island, dumping rain on the west coast and drying out the east coast.
That’s good news for the Tasmanian Wilderness world heritage area, which was significantly burned in 2016, but bad news for the holiday villages along the east Coast. The east coast is incredibly dry – drier than it was in 2013, when the Dunalley bushfire destroyed 93 homes.
“The area of fire concern is much wider,” Arnol said. “Where in 2015 it may have been 10-15km out from the coast, it’s now about 50km from the coast that’s dry.”
The TFS has begun setting up tanks at strategic points along the coast.
This weekend will see a return to Tasmania’s normal summer weather pattern, of high-pressure systems bringing hot northerly winds which swing around to south-westerlies, making it difficult to control fire behaviour. The forecast for 29 and 30 December is for temperatures in the 30s and dry lightning.
About 9,550ha of Tasmania has burned so far this season.
