Dozens of wildfires hit southern Australia
Print Edition
Dozens of wildfires sparked by lightning strikes overnight were raging in heat wave conditions across rural southern Australia yesterday.
Firefighters were able to contain most of the fires in South Australia and Victoria. But authorities warned of worsening fire conditions tomorrow, when winds are expected to gather pace.
South Australia fire official Leigh Miller said the number of fires peaked at 350 in that state since Tuesday, most of them sparked by lightning strikes. Lighting had also started 256 blazes across Victoria by early yesterday, state Fire Commissioner Craig Lapsley said.
There were few reported injuries so far. In South Australia state, a woman sustained burns to her hands on Tuesday while trying to save her home in Rockleigh. She was taken to hospital for treatment and discharged yesterday.
In neighboring Victoria state, 10 firefighters received medical treatment for heat exhaustion, fire official Jason Leigh said. There were no immediate reports of property damage.
A least 14 fires continued to burn across South Australia yesterday, Miller said. The number of fires across Victoria was cut to 29 yesterday, with 16 burning out of control, fire official Mick Harris said.
Yesterday was the second day of a four-day heat wave forecast across southeast Australia, after temperatures reached 45 degrees Celsius on Tuesday in the South Australian capital Adelaide, close to the city’s record 46.1 degrees Celsius set in 1939.
Lapsley said low winds helped firefighters contain the blazes yesterday. But the winds would gather pace by Friday.
But Lapsley said conditions on Friday would still not be as bad as the catastrophic conditions on February 7, 2009, when wildfires killed 173 people and destroyed more than 2,000 homes in Victoria.
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