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The extra health costs associated with the premature loss of life and admissions to hospitals was estimated to be $2 billion, Professor Fay Johnston, a specialist in environmental health at the University of Tasmania, told the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements.

The estimates, presented in evidence to the royal commission, are based on modeling of the impact of ultra-fine particles – those smaller than one 1000th of a millimeter – in bushfire smoke that lingered over around 80 percent of the Australian population over the summer.

The estimates did not include further costs to society such as loss of time at work or school, the commission heard. Nor did the health impacts include the significant impact of increased stress or the disruption to treatment plans or medication regimes or even of the loss of regular exercise.

The commission also heard that 34,679 insurance claims worth $2.26 billion had been lodged, including 9,004 for domestic buildings worth $1.22 billion. It was told that normally insurers reject about 4 percent of claims but so far only around .66 percent of bushfire related claims had been rejected.

The commission was told that the increasing frequency of natural disasters due to climate change was compounding the psychological impact on survivors, particularly on children, and that this had been even further exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

The town of only around 1000 permanent residents lost around 100 homes, he said.

Many of the small school’s students lived outside the town and had only intermittent access to the internet and mobile phones due to the damage to infrastructure caused by fires, making remote learning difficult “for children who had already been through the trauma of the fires,” Mr. Cashmore told the commission in a recorded interview.

Further, the town has been hit with a series of blackouts this year, also due to fire damage.

“It is a double-whammy for us. It is two unbelievable events that have impacted greatly on our small community,” Mr. Cashmore said.

He said that while children in other parts of the country might have enjoyed the novelty of not having to attend school as the pandemic hit, students in Mallacoota wanted to be at school as part of their recovery and to tell stories about their memories of the fires.

See a visual guide to the fires here

Nick O’Malley is National Environment and Climate Editor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He is also a senior writer and a former US correspondent.

Source: https://www.watoday.com.au/environment/climate-change/bushfires-left-estimated-445-dead-from-smoke-and-a-nation-traumatised-20200526-p54wha.html

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Around 126,000 square kilometres of land and thousands of buildings were destroyed and at least 33 people died.

Many animals were injured or killed because of the flames and the damage done to their habitat.

Victoria and New South Wales were the worst affected and the situation was so bad that a state of emergency was declared in the Capital city, Canberra.

Newsround went to the Blue Mountains near Sydney in February to find out what it was like for people living near the fires.

Australia is used to bushfires, they are a natural part of the country’s summer season, but normally they last for a couple of weeks and are not very big.

This season they started earlier than usual, spread much faster, burned hotter and lasted longer.

There were fires from June 2019 until March 2020, with the worst of the fires happening in December and January.

Large fires burned out of control and two big fires even came together to form a ‘mega blaze’.

Impact on people

GETTY IMAGES – Some homes were completely flattened

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Thousands of people lost their homes and many had to leave their houses to live in temporary accommodation until the danger had passed.

Smoke caused big problems for people with some schools keeping pupils inside during breaks to protect them.

It was particularly hard for those with breathing problems, such as asthma, and lots of people wore face masks outside to try to avoid breathing in the smoke.

The situation was so extreme that the army was called in to help during the emergency and lots of firefighters and volunteers risked their lives tackling the flames.

Millions of Australian dollars were raised by pop stars like Chris Hemsworth, Pink, and Nicole Kidman to help those affected.

Wildlife

GETTY IMAGES – Kangaroos got caught in the fast-moving fires

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It’s thought at least a billion animals died in the fires.

Kangaroo Island off the south of Australia was particularly badly hit with around half of the island affected by the flames.

Makeshift clinics were set up to help injured animals and the army had to be brought in to help clean up after the fires.

The loss of habitat caused further problems for the animals that survived – left struggling to find food with little shelter and more vulnerable to predators.

Lots of people have been raising money to help animals affected by the bushfires, even knitting kangaroo pouches for joeys who have lost their mums.

Some koalas from the Blue Mountains were rescued before the fires hit. They were looked after at Taronga Zoo, in Sydney, and have since been re-released into the wild.

The environment

GETTY IMAGES – Trees were charred in the intense heat

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Up to 70% of the Blue Mountains National Park, a popular tourist area near Sydney, was burnt. Trees and plants have been scorched by the intense flames.

In some areas, the flames reached as high as 100 meters (328 feet) tall.

Native Australian trees like Eucalyptus can cope with small fires and even need heat for their seeds to be released but these fires were unusually hot and intense, causing significant damage.

Other trees are not as well adapted to heat and fire and lots of them were so badly damaged by the bushfires that they died.

Ash from the fires has also caused problems by washing into rivers, causing pollution and chemical changes to the water, damaging the fish, creatures, and plants living there.

The loss of trees and plants has also made flooding and landslides more likely, as roots that help hold the soil together and plants soak up rainfall have gone, meaning the earth will wash away easily – causing soil erosion.

Although most of the bush will grow back it will take several years to fully recover.

Why was the bushfire season so bad?

Climate change has increased the chance of bushfires by at least 30% according to a study by The World Weather Consortium in March.

Hot, dry, and windy conditions made these fires bigger and more intense than normal.

2019 was Australia’s hottest and driest year on record with temperatures hitting 40C and above in every state.

A scorching top temperature of 49.9°C was recorded in Nullarbor South Australia on 19 December.

These record temperatures were caused in part by an unusually strong long-term weather cycle called the Indian Dipole.

Higher than usual temperature differences between the two sides of the Indian Ocean meant flooding in parts of East Africa and a lack of rainfall in Australia.

These conditions meant that trees and plants were really dry so caught fire easily – allowing the bushfires to spread quickly.

Climate change action

Now the fires are over, many people say more needs to be done to tackle climate change to reduce the risk of bushfires as bad as this happening again.

Australia’s economy relies heavily on fossil fuels like coal and gas and the country produces one of the highest levels of greenhouse gases per person in the world.

These gases are one of the key causes of global warming and climate change.

Climate activists have been asking the government to use greener forms of energy like wind and solar power to cut carbon emissions.

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/52410744

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The post Thousands flee from apocalyptic fires in Australia first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

(PERTH, Australia) — Thousands of tourists fled Australia’s wildfire-ravaged eastern coast Thursday ahead of worsening conditions as the military started to evacuate people trapped on the shore further south.

Cooler weather since Tuesday has aided firefighting and allowed people to replenish supplies. Vehicles formed long lines at gas stations and supermarkets, and traffic was gridlocked as highways reopened. But fire conditions were expected to deteriorate Saturday as high temperatures and strong winds return.

“There is every potential that the conditions on Saturday will be as bad or worse than we saw (on Tuesday),” New South Wales Rural Fire Service Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers said.

Authorities said 381 homes had been destroyed on the New South Wales southern coast this week and at least eight people have died this week in the state and neighboring Victoria, Australia’s two most-populous states, where more than 200 fires are currently burning.

New South Wales authorities in the morning ordered tourists to leave a 250-kilometer (155-mile) zone along the picturesque south coast. State Transport Minister Andrew Constance said it is the “largest mass relocation of people out of the region that we’ve ever seen.”

In Victoria, where 68 homes have burned this week, the military was helping thousands of people who fled to the shore as a wildfire threatened their homes Tuesday in the coastal town of Mallacoota. Food, water, fuel and medical expertise were being delivered and about 500 people were going to be evacuated from the town by a naval ship.

“We think around 3,000 tourists and 1,000 locals are there. Not all of those will want to leave, not all can get on the vessel at one time,” Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The early and devastating start to Australia’s summer wildfires has led authorities to rate this season the worst on record. About 5 million hectares (12.35 million acres) of land have burned, with at least 17 people dead and more than 1,300 homes destroyed.

Prime Minster Scott Morrison said the crisis was likely to last for months. “It (fires) will continue to go on until we can get some decent rain that can deal with some of the fires that have been burning for many, many months,” Morrison told reporters on Thursday.

Smoke from the wildfires caused the air quality in the national capital, Canberra, to be the world’s worst and was blowing into New Zealand.

Source: https://time.com/5757634/australia-bushfires-tourists-flee/

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The post Ring of fire surrounds NSW (Australia) first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Firefighters battling the blazes for weeks received a reprieve of slightly cooler, damper conditions over Christmas, but the respite is not expected to last long.

Temperatures in New South Wales (NSW) state are forecast to head back towards 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) early next week, fuelling fires near Warragamba Dam, which provides water to about 80% of Sydney’s 5 million residents.

“In recent days up to the cool change, the fires had been a potential threat to supply and assets, particularly in Warragamba and in the Blue Mountains,” a spokesman for the state’s water authority, WaterNSW, told Reuters.

“With the coming very hot conditions the fire situation may escalate in both those fronts and possibly elsewhere.”

Warragamba Dam is located 65km (40 miles) west of Sydney, catching water flowing from the mountains.

It is at 44.8% capacity, down from almost being full less than three years ago, as a prolonged drought ravages the continent’s east.

Despite the widespread destruction, the state’s water infrastructure network has not been damaged, the spokesman said.

There have been eight deaths, including two volunteer firefighters, linked to the blazes since they flared in spring.

With more than 40 dams across the state, WaterNSW supplies two-thirds of untreated water to the state’s water utilities, which then treat and clean the resource to provide drinking water to cities and regional towns.

Large quantities of ash and burnt material could pose a threat to the quality of water in the dams if the fires are followed by heavy rain.

However, there is no significant rain forecast for NSW in the short-term and WaterNSW has put containment barriers to catch potential debris run-off, the water authority said.

VOLUNTEER FORCE

Australia’s reliance on a large volunteer firefighting force has been tested during this fire season that still potentially has months to run through the southern hemisphere summer.

While conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison previously said compensation for volunteers was not a priority, he said on Tuesday that government workers could receive additional paid leave for volunteering.

A senior government minister said on Friday the government was now looking into providing wider relief. [nL4N28Y0EW]

“The prime minister is looking at this issue further on how we can provide targeted support in these extreme circumstances so that our volunteers get the support they need to keep volunteering,” Defence Minister Linda Reynolds told media in Perth.

While there are different rules across Australia’s states, volunteers tend to negotiate time off directly with their employer.

Morrison has been under intense political pressure after it was revealed he was holidaying in Hawaii shortly before Christmas while the country grappled with an emergency and two volunteers near the fire frontlines had been killed. [nL4N28Y0EW]

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A state of emergency has been declared in New South Wales as bushfires continue to devastate Australia.

New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian said the state of emergency will last for seven days, and three emergency warning alerts have already been issued for fire, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Berejiklian added that New South Wales is entering a period of grim uncertainty as a heatwave and high winds threaten to ramp up bushfires.

“The biggest concern over the next few days is the unpredictability, with extreme wind conditions [and] extremely hot temperatures,” she said during a press conference on Thursday.

It is the second state of emergency to be declared in the state since the start of the bushfire season.

Residents still in Currowan, Green Wattle Creek and Tianjara are advised by local police to remain in place because it is “too late to leave”.

“Seek shelter as the fire approaches. Protect yourself from the heat of the fire,” the New South Wales Police Force said on Facebook.

There are currently up to 100 fires burning across New South Wales.

The Rural Fire Service (RFS) issued extreme fire danger warnings for Illawarra, Greater Sydney and Shoalhaven, and Southern Ranges, according to its website.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the state of emergency gives the RFS power to evacuate properties, close roads, pull down infrastructure at risk of collapse and order the shutdown of electricity, gas, oil, and water.

The powers also include the RFS being able to direct any government agency to conduct or refrain from carrying out its functions.

Source: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2019/12/state-of-emergency-declared-in-new-south-wales-following-devastating-bushfires.html

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