Track the spread of the Australia Bushfires with this interactive map
At the moment, around 130 fires are burning across Australia, heightened by scorching temperatures beyond 100 degrees Fahrenheit and dry conditions. At least 23,000 square miles have been torched, and twenty people have lost their lives. The reality is that there are not enough local firefighting forces to combat all the bushfires, and there have been catastrophic environmental, human, and economic impacts. On Sunday, the Australia Defence Force said it had called 3,000 army reserve forces and others with specialist capabilities to help fight the flames.
With this website by FireWatch, you can track the spread of the wildfires in live time. Although there is some forecast for rain, there is expected to be little relief to the fires’ spread.
Experts have shown that these severity of these bushfires are entirely climate change-based. Although Australia always has a bushfire season around this time, the combination of record-breaking heat, drought and high wind conditions have exacerbated the season. 2019 was easily the hottest and driest year on record for Australia, and expert point to climate change for the dry ecosystems, which become bountiful kindling for bushfires. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations, the bushfire season in Australia will almost definitely increase as the world grows warmer.
According to Professor Chris Dickman at University of Sydney, it is estimated that around 480 million animals have been affected by the fires. While there is hope that reptiles can burrow underground, birds can fly away, and larger animals can outrun the pace the fires, there are thousands of species that are unaccounted for. There have been hundreds of koalas saved and sent to recuperation centers.
If you wish to donate and help support thousands of people in evacuation centers right now, please click here. There are other ways to help if you cannot donate money. The Red Cross says clothing and household goods can be given to Red Cross-affiliated shops, or suggests holding garage sales or fund-raising events. Volunteering roles are also possible. After training, volunteers are deployed to fill emergency roles.
