We’ve Never Seen Conditions As Bad As This
As bushfires devastate Australia, firefighters are at the frontline of defense. Yet, decades of cost-cutting have hamstrung their efforts, and Scott Morrison has refused to pay the volunteer force for their work. Funding these services is the bare minimum in a warming world, but it doesn't substitute for structural change.
Firefighters stop at a refueling station following a long night at the nearby fire front on Wednesday on Kangaroo Island, Australia. (Lisa Maree Williams / Getty Images)
As a career firefighter of over twenty years’ service, these fires are the worst I have seen.
At time of writing there has been a record 4.9 million hectares burnt out — an area larger than Scotland. There are at least 23 dead, three of whom were firefighters. Thousands of homes, and many more other structures have been destroyed. Last December, the record for Australia’s hottest day was smashed three times in one week.
Over the last two months, no part of New South Wales’s long coastline has remained unscathed. At its peak, the Gospers Mountain fire stretched from Lithgow to the central coast hinterland. The civilian evacuation of the south coast over the New Year period was as big as the 1974 evacuation of Darwin in the wake of Cyclone Tracey. And this is to say nothing of Australia’s other states, let alone the global impact. The particulate pollution is so severe that cities in New Zealand, over two thousand kilometers away, have been affected.
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