Wildfires in Australia blaze cover 1,000 miles of land

On Tuesday, a stream of wildfires that has covered almost 1,000 miles of land, hit Australia’s most populated state. Firefighters are now saying that with the predicted weather conditions, an enormous amount of damage could still be coming. “If our strategies don’t work and weather materializes tomorrow that is forecast … it could be absolutely devastating,” said Rural Fire Service Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers. “We lost a couple hundred homes the other day — we could get worse losses than that.” RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons added that Wednesday will likely be “about as bad as it gets.”

Local residents have been advised to evacuate if they are in the path of the fires, and because of weather conditions like high temperatures, low humidity and strong winds, extra precaution is being taken. “Do not leave your decision to the last minute. Do not think fire can’t happen to you. Do not expect a fire truck,” Fitzsimmons said. “On days like tomorrow, there is every real potential that we could see more homes lost and more lives lost.” An additional 1,500 firefighters are also being brought in to help emergency crews. There has been at least one death, and more than 200 homes in the Blue Mountains region were destroyed.

“Our key strategy today is to try to slow or stop those fires ahead of these worsening conditions … I’ve got to say, though, I’m not hugely confident that the strategies we have are going to work, but at the end of the day, we’ve got to try something,” said Rogers.