Australian authorities urged nearly a quarter of a million people to evacuate their homes on Friday and prepared military backup as soaring temperatures and erratic winds were expected to fan deadly bushfires across the east coast.
Temperatures were expected to shoot well above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in several parts of the country on Friday, accompanied by high winds, threatening to inflame fires that have already left thousands of people homeless.
Australia’s wildfires have dwarfed other catastrophic blazes around the world. Combining 2019 fires in California, Brazil and Indonesia still amounts to less than half the burned area in Australia.
“If you can get out, you should get out, you shouldn’t be in the remote and forested parts of our State,” Andrew Crisp, emergency management commissioner for the state of Victoria, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Emergency alert text messages had been sent to 240,000 people in Victoria state alone, telling them to leave, Crisp said. People in high-risk regions in New South Wales and South Australia states were also urged to think about leaving, but authorities had not provided numbers.
Twenty-seven people have been killed and thousands subjected to repeat evacuations as monster – and unpredictable – fires have scorched through more than 10.3 million hectares (25.5 million acres) of land, an area the size of South Korea.
Climate protests were planned for Friday in several cities, including Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra, targeting the Australian government handling of the crisis and its position on climate change.
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