Sydney under blanket of smoke as bushfires continue to burn across Australia
Sydney residents woke to find their city under a blanket of smoke on Thursday and it is expected to remain at least until Friday.
The smoke is due to around 50 bushfires still burning in the Australian state of New South Wales, affecting the north and central coast and Illawarra as well as Sydney.
A poor air quality forecast alert was issued in the early hours of the morning and the Department of Primary Industries and Environment’s air quality index showed hazardous fine particle readings in central Sydney by 9am.
Australia’s ABC News reports that six homes have been lost in a bushfire that has been burning for 10 days in the Pechey area on Queensland’s Darling Downs with the fire front was now more than 100 kilometres long.
More than 600 homes have been destroyed by bushfires in New South Wales during the current fire season, 503 of them in the past two weeks, according to the NSW Rural Fire Service.
Six people have been killed.
But the service estimated that more than 7,000 threatened buildings had been saved, either by firefighters – who were supported by colleagues from other states and from New Zealand – or members of the public.
