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| Down Under |
| Hundreds of Wildfires burning in Australia |
| 2006-12-07 |
| Hundreds of wildfires swept across southern and eastern Australia on Thursday, as firefighters scrambled to protect homes and farmland amid heavy winds and soaring temperatures. Fire crews in the states of Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and New South Wales struggled against the weather to contain about 300 fires on hundreds of hectares (acres) of forest and scrubland. Around 260 fires were burning across Victoria by Thursday afternoon, as temperatures hit 36 degrees Celsius (96.8 Fahrenheit) - the state's hottest October day in 100 years. "It's really unseasonal weather, and is causing us considerable difficulty," said a state Country Fire Authority spokesman, Geoff Evans. No houses were under threat and no one has been injured, Evans said. Meanwhile, in neighboring South Australia, firefighters battled in 40-degree Celsius (104-degree Fahrenheit) heat to contain three separate, out-of-control on Kangaroo Island. One fire had already destroyed around 600 hectares (1,480 acres) of scrubland and was moving toward a popular national park, according to a state fire official, Euan Ferguson. Firefighters were fighting exhaustion after putting out 38 fires across the state on Wednesday. "It is unprecedented to have weather conditions such as we are having today in October," Fergusen said. "This is not a normal year." In the southern island state of Tasmania, two helicopters and about 25 fire crews were trying to stop a blaze from reaching a suburban housing estate near the capital, Hobart, said Tasmania Fire Service spokesman Danny Reid. It was one of 18 fires burning in Tasmania, and officials are treating it as a possible arson. In New South Wales, fire crews succeeded in containing a fire that had threatened dozens of homes in the wine-growing Hunter Valley district northeast of Sydney, the Rural Fire Service said. More high temperatures have been predicted for the weekend, prompting officials to ban the lighting of any fires across large sections of the country. Wildfires are a regular feature of Australia's hot summers, raging across thousands of hectares (acres) of forests and scrubland, and sometimes cities and towns. Although sometimes sparked by lightning, the fires are more often caused by human activities, such as vehicle sparks, the burning of agricultural land, accidents and arson. In 2003, hundreds of houses were destroyed and four people died when a huge blaze tore into the national capital, Canberra. Last January, nine people died in fires on South Australia state's Eyre Peninsula. |
| Posted by:Oztralian |