Saturday may well turn out to be the deadliest day Australia has known since the start of its fires in September. The toll is already very heavy: 18 people have died and 17 others are missing. More than 1,300 houses were completely wiped off the map and 5.5 million hectares went up in smoke, the equivalent of Denmark.
Before a new heat peak in the country, which could rekindle these fires of unprecedented intensity, some residents had to be evacuated and thousands of tourists fled certain areas of the southeast coast. Australia, one of the first large-scale victims of global warming? The Parisian takes stock of what we know at this stage.
What caused these fires?
Each year, during the southern summer - which begins in December -, the island finds itself in the grip of forest fires, because during hot weather, the vegetation becomes combustible. This year, however, in the state of New South Wales, the fires started much earlier, in September, and with unusual violence, until they turned into out of control braziers.
This region has numerous eucalyptus trees, which are particularly flammable because their leaves are filled with oil. A cocktail of drought, high temperatures and strong winds then dramatically accelerated the process.
"We were not expecting this type of fire until much later in the summer," explained fire specialist Professor Tina Bell to the University of Sydney website. But this year, we are already feeling the effects of an extended period of drought. His colleague Petr Matous also believes that "the current fires may be directly linked to a lack of rain in recent months and, in fact, to extremely low levels of humidity in the forests of New South Wales". The current strong winds make the acceleration of the flames worse and sweep the smoke towards the suffocating cities.
Are these fires of an unprecedented scale?
These fires broke a number of sad records. Never before have there been so many wildfires in Australia, 18 to date, as well as 17 missing persons. The number of hectares burned, 5.5 million, had also never been reached so far. The highest flames go up to 70m, reports The Telegraph.
The number of animals killed is also dramatically new: according to associations cited by the ABC chain, 480 million animals, including 8,000 koalas, have perished, data extrapolated from the loss of their habitat. Pollution, too, in surrounding cities, including Sydney and Camberra, defies orders of magnitude. The level of pollution in the air has sometimes exceeded by 11 times that considered dangerous for humans.
Saturday, already considered a dark day, could count new thousands of hectares burned due to high temperatures and forecast gusts of wind.
Why can't the authorities contain them?
"There are so many fires in this area that we are unable to contain" the disaster, said Rob Rogers, of the New South Wales State Fire Department, on Thursday. Since September, firefighters have been fighting in vain against the spread of the flames. Monday, there were a hundred fires, including 40 uncontrolled.
My Earth Newsletter
Each week, environmental news seen by Le ParisienI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more
Winds whose orientation and intensity are unpredictable, prevent firefighters from being able to definitively contain these fires for almost three months. As The Guardian reported in November, these winds, changing direction incessantly, propagate the flames in new directions, until merging fires making them even more invincible. If the phenomenon manages to be soon suppressed, it could revive very quickly. States remain in a situation of significant drought and therefore vulnerable to new flames.
What consequences for humans and animals?
The images of thousands of residents, stranded on the beaches of Mallacoota, in the State of Victoria, as a last bastion to protect themselves from the flames, attest to the violence of the situation.
The Navy is currently shipping in emergency supplies to the landlocked residents and tourists at Mallacoota, as the bushfire crisis in Victoria's East Gippsland intensified. @MimiRoseBecker # 9News pic.twitter.com/hplTq8O0bp
- Nine News Australia (@ 9NewsAUS) January 2, 2020Australians are in a state of emergency in certain regions: the authorities have mobilized military personnel, ships and planes to provide humanitarian aid to the inhabitants of the most remote areas.
Currently tens of thousands of residents of New South Wales and Victoria must be evacuated as soon as possible. In some cities, residents also suffocate, breathing air polluted by smoke from fires.
Many specialists are also worried about the fate of animals, of which 480 million would have perished, while Australia is home to certain species unique in the world. “Many of our wildlife species now live on reserves, such as natural parks. If these habitats are lost, they simply have nowhere to go, and their number can decline dangerously, ”says Professor Dieter Hochuli, on the University of Sydney website. Koalas, a very vulnerable species and very slow to move, especially in the face of such intense flames, are at the heart of concerns. They would be at least 8000 to see already perished.
Is this phenomenon linked to global warming?
Scientifically, it is obviously far too early to say. But the violence, the precocity and the durability of these fires puzzled many experts and inhabitants of Australia, who saw it as a direct consequence of global warming. Several demonstrations have been organized in recent weeks to ask Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who has been criticized for having renewed his support for the polluting coal industry, to take urgent action.
Australian Petr Matous, engineer in humanitarian and environment at the University of Sydney, recalls that “most scenarios in terms of climate projection predict - with great reliability - new changes in precipitation across the country . This could lead to seasons with even more massive fires in South and East Australia. ”
"It is devastating to imagine that these current disasters are perhaps only a taste of what could happen in the coming decades," also alarms the specialist.