Bushfires: Australia’s Black Summer is back with fatalities

The most dangerous bushfire season to hit Australia since the country’s so-called “Black Summer” has resulted in fatalities.

On Thursday, when more than one hundred fires were burning in different parts of the country, officials in the state of Queensland reported that two people had perished in significant flames near the town of Tara.

During the same week, two firefighters in New South Wales (NSW) were killed while battling blazes in Black Summer.

The authorities have been warning the public for months that a combination of factors means that this bushfire season will be very hazardous.

The Queensland Fire and Emergency Services stated in a briefing that approximately 350 people had been evacuated from the Tara district, which is where an out-of-control fire had so far consumed more than 11,000 hectares of land and destroyed 16 dwellings.

According to reports, a man passed away on Tuesday night while attempting to defend his property, while a lady passed away on Wednesday after having a heart arrest while making preparations to leave the area.

Several more fires were started overnight as a result of dry lightning storms that occurred in the same location. One has caused an emergency alert to be issued, but the majority are under control.

On the other hand, the circumstances are forecasted to become much more severe on Thursday, with a rise in both the temperatures and the wind speeds.

“[It] will again be another challenging day for us today, as we head into areas of extreme fire danger,” said Peter Hollier, the acting assistant commissioner of the Rural Fire Service.

In addition, firefighters in New South Wales (NSW), Victoria, and the Northern Territory are engaged in a battle to extinguish fires in their respective regions.

A experienced volunteer firefighter in New South Wales passed away from medical episode on duty in the state’s north last week. The same week, another man passed away while attempting to safeguard his property on the mid-north coast of the state. The authorities stated earlier this week that they suspect all three of the huge fires that occurred in that region were started on purpose.

Australia has been placed on high alert due to the risk of bushfires. This is as a result of years of rain-driven plant growth, which is now drying up as a result of the warmest winter on record, as well as an El Nino-affected summer that predicts more hot and dry months.

In recent years, the nation has been hit by one catastrophic event after another as it struggles to cope with repercussions of climate change.

At the beginning of this month, towns in Victoria were under threat from bushfires; however, just hours later, they were compelled to prepare for flooding instead.

The current bushfire season also follows three years of record-breaking floods, which followed the Black Summer bushfires in 2019-20, which itself followed years of drought. In other words, the current firestorm season is the culmination of a vicious cycle.

The world climate scientists issued a dire warning that if immediate action is not made to combat climate change, the world is likely to see a future full of calamities that get worse over time.