Fire smoke floods the road as fire trucks pass near Bumbalong, south of Canberra, on Saturday, February 1, 2020. – Rick Rycroft / AP / SIPA
The authorities of Canberra have placed the Australian federal capitalOn alert due to the threat of forest fires in the area. The Chief Minister of the Capital Territory
Australian (ACT) Andrew Barr said the measure would be continued “as long as the risk remains for Canberra”.
This is the first time that such a state of alert has been declared in the Australian Capital Territory since 2003, when fires destroyed almost half a thousand homes. The main threat to Canberra at present is the fire that is raging in the Oral Valley and has already burned almost 180 square kilometers of forest to the south of the city.
But it was without counting on the heat. Mercury soared to more than 40 degrees Celsius in South Australia on Thursday, where fire hazard alerts were issued. And a heat wave is expected over the Australian capital of 400,000 inhabitants, while fires threaten its southern suburbs. “It could get out of hand,” said Andrew Barr. The state of alert is the highest signal that can be sent to the people of ACT to tell them to make arrangements. “
National disaster leaves at least 33 dead since September
This heat wave is expected to move east to reach Melbourne and Canberra on Friday, then Sydney this weekend, where temperatures could reach 45 degrees. Authorities believe that these extreme temperatures, accompanied by dry winds, create the conditions for forest fires in parts of New South Wales and Victoria, where more than 80 fires are still raging.
Forecasters expect this heat wave to be followed by storms, which could potentially extinguish some fires. However, intense precipitation also poses the risk of floods and flash floods.
Fires occur every year in Australia at the end of the Australian winter. But they have been particularly early and intense this year, generating a national disaster that has left at least 33 people dead since September. Since September, an area of more than 100,000 km2, larger than Portugal, has been reduced to ashes and more than 2,000 homes destroyed. Researchers say more than a billion animals have been killed.
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