By Samuel Abuya
Official reports indicate that the raging Australia’s bushfires have claimed at least 24 lives, killed millions animals and burned more than 12 million acres of land, an area estimated to be equal to America’s state of New Hampshire and Vermont combined.
While the bushfires are spreading way so fast to a point of causing some sort of a haze in New Zealand which is in excess of 1,000 miles away, the smoke resulting from the fires can be seen from space.
According to Prof. David Bowman, the director of the Fire Centre Research Hub at the University of Tasmania, the intensity of the bushfires, the scale, the geographical range and the number, not forgetting the fact that they are burning simultaneously plus the kind of environments that they (the fires) are burning are all extraordinary, something which is likely to make this season’s Australia’s bushfires one of the intense in the country’s bushfire history.
“We’re in the middle of a war situation…mass evacuations, the involvement of the military, hugely exhausted fire fighting campaigns, it is difficult to explain,” Prof. Bowman told news agencies.
Reliable statistics show that quite a number of people are still missing, or at least cannot be accounted for, while several have been completely destroyed.
In a concerted efforts to put off the fires, or at least cub their spread, the military deployed aircrafts and ships to help in bringing supplies to areas and towns engulfed by the bushfires and evacuate locals who were literally cut off from the rest of the country by the fires.
Quick factsheet on the Australia’s bushfires
At least 24 people have been confirmed dead with South Wales, Australia’s most popular state, accounting for 20 deaths.
10 firefighters have reportedly lost their lives in efforts to fight the bushfires. Some have died in vehicle crashes.
Several homes have been destroyed leaving many people homes with hundreds of thousands scampering for safety.
Australia’s unique wildlife has been greatly devastated by the fires. Prof. Chris Dickman from the University of Sydney puts the number of animals that have could perish as a result of the bushfires and their later-on effects such as destruction of their food and shelter at around 480 million.
It has been reported that more than 12.35 million acres of land have been burned across the country, at least according to the Associated Press.
More than 200 fires were burning at least by the first week of January, 2020.
Official reports released by the Australian authorities have warned that the country may continue to witness bushfires for months with the premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews telling news agencies that Australians should not be “complacent” about the bushfires.
A state of emergency was declared in the state of New South Wales, where Sydney is found, in mid November as a result of the bushfires. The fires are expected to continue into the fall season in the southern parts of Australia and Tasmania.
Victoria’s Bureau of Meteorology released photos of hazy skies saying the visibility at an airport in the city of Albury, at the border of Victoria and New South Wales, was very low putting it at around 1,600 feet.
People in the affected areas have also been asked to call emergency numbers in the event that they experience chest tightness or shortness of breath as a result of the smokes emanating from the fires.
Global warming has been cited as one of the contributing factors that have fuelled the Australia’s bushfires that have ravaged the country, one of the driest inhabited continents in the world, since September last year.
The Australia’s bushfire effects on climate change
It has been reported that within the three months that the Australia’s bushfires have been burning, they have “spewed as much as two-thirds of the nation’s annual CO2 emissions”. The fires have also released more CO2 than the combined annual emissions of more than 100 countries put together, at least according to Carbon Brief.
Scientists have also pointed out that it might take up to a whole century before the forests absorb what the fires have emitted in this season.
