In the past several weeks, 12.35 million acres of land in Australia have been ravaged by wildfires. At least 24 people have been killed and 2,000 homes have been destroyed. Over half a billion animals have been killed in the fires, and this estimate climbs to over a billion when including bats, amphibians, and invertebrates. The extent to which these fires have escalated has been attributed to the results of environmental factors including climate change as record-shattering heat and strong winds spread the blaze.
You can see a live map of where these fires are and how long they have been burning, see this map here: https://myfirewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au/
To look at a size-comparison of what these fires would look like in the US, see the map presented here: https://abcnews.go.com/International/us-map-examine-scale-massive-australia-wildfires/story?id=68102703
And learn more about the environmental causes of these fires here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/01/04/record-shattering-heat-strong-winds-cause-australias-bush-fire-crisis-escalate/
In the past several weeks, 12.35 million acres of land in Australia have been ravaged by wildfires. At least 24 people have been killed and 2,000 homes have been destroyed. Over half a billion animals have been killed in the fires, and this estimate climbs to over a billion when including bats, amphibians, and invertebrates. The extent to which these fires have escalated has been attributed to the results of environmental factors including climate change as record-shattering heat and strong winds spread the blaze.
You can see a live map of where these fires are and how long they have been burning, see this map here: https://myfirewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au/
To look at a size-comparison of what these fires would look like in the US, see the map presented here: https://abcnews.go.com/International/us-map-examine-scale-massive-australia-wildfires/story?id=68102703
And learn more about the environmental causes of these fires here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/01/04/record-shattering-heat-strong-winds-cause-australias-bush-fire-crisis-escalate/
