The smoke from the deadly Australian bushfire that devastated the country has now spread halfway around the world. It also darkened skies in Argentina and Chile. Sydney and Canberra faced another day of toxic haze shrouding the skyline on Wednesday. The US weather satellite then detected theFire disaster felt worldwide. This crossed South America and spread through Buenos Aires before entering the Atlantic. This happened about 11,793 kilometers east of Sydney, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Bushfire Australia – natural disaster
More than 10 million hectares have burned. This is roughly the size of the US state of Indiana and five times the size of Wales in the UK. The bushfires are so large that they create their own weather systems. They thus cause dry lightning strikes, which also ignite and blaze.
The death toll since the wildfire began has risen to 25. On Wednesday, media reported that a car accident last week that killed a 43-year-old firefighter from Victoria state was caused by the flames.
The Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bridge were barely visible on Wednesday. The huge cloud of smoke rose from bushfires that had devastated large parts of the Blue Mountains and other national parks to the north and west of the city. Air quality in the national capital Canberra, which has been the worst in the world at times in recent weeks, has been classified as unhealthy by AirVisual.
Dangerous consequences
When Australians woke up on Wednesday, there were nearly 120 fires burning in the state of New South Wales alone, about 50 of which were uncontained. The state of South Australia faces an “extreme” fire threat on Wednesday. Authorities are warning that dangerous conditions will return to the fire-ravaged southeast of the country on Friday, when the temperature in Canberra is expected to reach 39 degrees Celsius.
More than 1,500 homes have burned in New South Wales alone this season, with the number rising daily. The fires continue to spread and authorities are assessing the damage. The University of Sydney estimates that 480 million animals have died in the state's bushfires since September.
