Early start to Australian bushfire season
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Early start to Australian bushfire season*
24 Sep 2006 06:42:41 GMT
Source: Reuters
MELBOURNE, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Three homes have been destroyed by a fire
fanned by winds of up to 100 kph (60 mph) near Sydney, fire services
said on Sunday, as the bushfire season started early in eastern Australia.
Several fires burned in New South Wales state as temperatures soared
above 30 Celsius (86 Fahrenheit). The outbreaks followed the driest
August since records began in 1900, sparking an early start to the
blazes that scorch the country every summer.
The southern summer runs from December through February.
A spokesman for the Rural Fire Service said that three homes had been
razed in Thirlmere, southwest 85 km (50 miles) of Sydney.
"We do have a fire that's moving very fast through that area being
fanned by these winds, in some cases up to 90, 100 kph," spokesman
Cameron Wade told Sky TV.
"Fire crews in the area are working extremely hard under very difficult
circumstances. These wind conditions make it near impossible to stop a
fire that's burning through some of the vegetation that's there."
Fires also burned northwest of Sydney in the Hawkesbury region, further
north near Newcastle and in the southern part of the state around Ulladulla.
Relief is expected with a southerly change in the winds later on Sunday,
Wade said.
He said it was not clear yet how the fires started. Bushfires are a
naturally occurring phenomenon in Australia, but every year arsonists
are also blamed for starting scores of fires.
In January 2004, the deadliest bushfires in 22 years killed nine people
and injured dozens in South Australia. The blazes were the worst since
Ash Wednesday bushfires claimed 75 lives in South Australia and Victoria
in 1983.
Four people were killed and 530 homes destroyed in Canberra in 2003.
Bushfires fuelled by one of the worst droughts in a century ravaged a
slice of Australia three times the size of Britain that year.