Just days into this new year and our country is ablaze. The beautiful bushlands of Australia are tinder dry and going up in flames on a scale that is just unfathomable. Each day brings news of more land burned to a blackened crisp, skies shrouded in smoke, lives lost, people missing and thousands displaced, whole townships and many hundreds of homes destroyed, livelihoods gone and animals perishing and suffering. Each day brings news of more to come.
Map image from Digital Earth Australia Hotspots
(Source: Geoscience Australia https://hotspots.dea.ga.gov.au/)
Bushfires have been raging in areas along our Eastern Seaboard for months and there is still so much of this very hot and very dry Summer to go. On the map above, the larger the dot, the higher the probability that the hotspot detected by satellite represents fire. It's a very sobering image and even more so given that so much of our population lives along the Eastern Seaboard.
Today, very dangerous bushfire conditions, with soaring temperatures and strong winds, are forecast in the states of New South Wales and Victoria and in the Australian Capital Territory. I just hope, come the end of this day and into tomorrow, that no more lives will be lost. If you live in one of the warning areas, I hope you are somewhere else and safe. Xx
Our iconic Aussie kookaburra in a bushfire-blackened landscape.
(Photo credit: Adam Stevenson.)
After these fire emergencies are over; after the weather cools and the rains (hopefully) come and green shoots appear among the cinders, there will be many lives and many, many towns and properties to rebuild. That won't happen in a day, a week or a month but over many months and across years. The scale of recovery is unfathomable too.
May warm and caring arms continue to closely hold those impacted by bushfire. May we all give what we can, if we can. (ABC News Bushfire Relief: How You Can Help link) May those who have lost everything be supported in finding a way to begin again.
Meg
