WeatherFanatics: Thousands of Animals Hurt by Wildfires in Australia

Friday, October 25, 2013

Thousands of Animals Hurt by Wildfires in Australia

By Eric Leister, Meteorologist

October 25,2013; 9:28PM,EDT

The above image shows a koala that was badly injured by a wildfire in 2009.

More than 100 wildfires developed last week across southeast Australia leading to the worst fire crisis in decades.
In Australia's most populous state, New South Wales, the fires raged for nearly a week before firefighters finally gained the upper hand on the largest blazes.
In total, more than 125,000 hectares (300,000 acres) of land were consumed by the fires that took thousands of firefighters to contain.
On Thursday, a man flying a water-bomber plane and trying to douse a bush fire with water was killed when the plane crashed, sparking a new fire in Budawang National Park. A second man died when he suffered from a fatal heart attack trying to save his home.

A firefighter hoses to control flames near houses at Bilpin, 75 kilometers (47 miles) west of Sydney, Australia, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013. (AP Photo/Rob Griffith)
Much of the focus is now shifting toward locating wildlife that have been injured or displaced by the recent wildfires.
The animal rescue group WIRES, combined with many local residents have already been searching scorched areas for surviving animals that need aid following the most recent wildfires according to Strait Times.

A Koala nicknamed Sam, saved from the bushfires in Gippsland, is cared at the Mountain Ash Wildlife Center in Rawson, Australia, on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2009. Bandages can be seen on Sam's paws. (AP Photo)
The New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service stated, while it is unclear how many animals have been killed, thousands have likely been affected.
Since July, Sydney, Australia, has only received 116 mm (4.59 inches) of rainfall, or about 36 percent of the normal rainfall. Temperatures have also been about 6 degrees above average.
The combination of the extremely dry weather, unseasonable warmth and rounds of gusty winds has produced the ideal conditions for wildfires spark and spread rapidly over southeast Australia.
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Conditions are not expected to improve greatly over the next 30 days as Australia moves into spring. These conditions have prompted the government to declare a state of emergency, allowing firefighters to take whatever action is needed to save lives, including evacuating residents.
The government is hoping to avoid a repeat of the "Black Saturday" fires that happened in Victoria state in 2009. These fires killed 173 people and caused billions of dollars in damages.

An image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) shows the smoke from multiple fires spreading across Sydney, Australia, on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013.
After temperatures rose 20 degrees above normal on Tuesday, temperatures will return closer to normal for the end of the week. Unfortunately gusty winds are forecast to continue through the weekend across New South Wales.
AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Courtney Spamer contributed content to this story.

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