Fire and drought crisis in Australia

[Ken Herrick]

As many members might be aware, there is a real crisis situation current in Australia. Our bushfire season started early and ferociously. An area many times the size of the California fires has already burned and there will probably be several months more of widespread fires as it is only early summer. We have had years of severe drought with some areas having not had rain in several years so the bulk of the country is extremely dry, making the situation extremely dangerous.

So far the death toll has been miraculously low but with many towns surrounded by fire, with no place to escape to, it will likely rise sharply.
Thousands of homes have burned and livestock and wildlife losses are climbing.

Rather than me trying to tell the whole story, here is a link to the number one news service. https://www.abc.net.au/news/" target="_blank .

This ongoing drought has led to towns of thousands of people running out of water and is making it impossible to fight many of the fires. Suburbs of the largest cities have already been impacted by fires, water restrictions are in place and major cities like Sidney have had many days of dangerous air quality levels at more than 10 times "hazardous".

The situation is likely to get much worse before it gets better.

[bort]

Nature is a hell of a thing. Big prayers to you all down there.

[bisontuba]

Awful......

[tofu]

Been following closely - it's just devastating. Praying for some positive news for all of you down under. The loses to wildlife and the impact on the land and people are terrible.

[MaryAnn]

I saw that half a billion wildlife have perished. Entire species gone. All my best to those of you dealing with this.