11/01/2020
Australia needs all our prayers!!!
There have been fires in every Australian state, New South Wales has been hardest hit.
Blazes have torn through bushland, wooded areas, and national parks like the Blue Mountains. Some of Australia's largest cities have also been affected, including Melbourne and Sydney -- where fires have damaged homes in the outer suburbs and thick plumes of smoke have blanketed the urban center. Earlier in December, the smoke was so bad in Sydney that air quality measured 11 times the "hazardous" level.ll
The fires range in area from small blazes -- isolated buildings or part of a neighborhood -- to massive infernos that occupy entire hectares of land. Some start and are contained in a matter of days, but the biggest blazes have been burning for months. In NSW alone, more than 100 fires are still burning.
Early in January, Victoria declared a state of disaster and NSW declared a state of emergency -- both granting extraordinary powers and additional government resources to battle the fires. The state of Queensland also briefly declared a state of emergency in November.
There are more than 2,000 firefighters working on the ground in NSW alone, and more support is on the way -- the US, Canada, and New Zealand have sent additional firefighters to help.
Australian Bushfires Update as of 11th January 2020 @ 1:39 PM
While a fire reprieve is in sight as weather cools, flash flooding could being a new danger, experts say
