This year’s Australia fires are like nothing we’ve ever seen before, with an estimated 1.25 billion animals dead and over 16 million acres burned. Late October in Sydney, Australia lightning struck in an area with tons of dead, and dry trees. The fire spread quickly, and three months later, it is still burning. This is the country’s most disastrous fire season ever. What is especially problematic about these fires, is that they are happening in highly populated areas. Fires this large usually happen in the north, where few people live and blazes can burn. “What we’re seeing in Australia, in a completely different environment, are fires that are approaching or even exceeding the magnitude of things that we only saw in the most remote forested regions in the world,” said Ross Bradstock, the director of the Center for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales. These fires have burned about eight times as much land as the 2018 California Wildfires. More than 2,500 homes have been destroyed, and 29 people have perished. The smoke has covered some of the most populated areas, like Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra, giving them some of the worst air quality in the world. The smoke exposure to millions of people has raised tension about the health effects that could last for years. The fires have emitted as much carbon as the entire country produces in more than eight months out of the year. Climate change is causing for longer, hotter, and drier heat in Australia, which dries out plants and vegetation, making them more likely to burn. The fires are predicted to continue well into February and even March. This is just one of the many devastating things that is caused by climate change. We must put an end to this.
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