Australia faces danger of bushfires as it battles spring heatwave

Australia is currently battling an intense heatwave that has prompted the danger of a bushfire disaster. According to a report by the news agency Reuters on Wednesday (September 20), danger warnings have been issued for the Greater Sydney region, which is home to more than five million people. In its latest update, the NSW Rural Fire Services said over 600 firefighters and emergency personnel were battling to control 68 fires burning across New South Wales (NSW) state as of Wednesday morning.

"With hot, dry and windy conditions forecast throughout the day, the Greater Sydney Region ... will experience extreme fire danger, while several other areas will experience high fire danger," the update said.

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Total fire banin large swathes of NSW

Total fire bans are in place in large swathes of New South Wales. Reuters reported that on Tuesday, residents of a popular holiday town in Tasmania were told to move to a safer location due to an uncontrolled bushfire fuelled by strong wind gusts.

Meanwhile, fire crews rushed to conduct hazard-reduction burns in Sydney's west to prepare for the looming bushfire season, which authorities said could be the worst since the 2019-2020 'Black Summer' fires.

During this disaster, around 15,000 separate fires burned across Australia, according to a report by the BBC. Greg Mullins, a former fire brigade chief, who repeatedly warned authorities about the Black Summer fires but got no positive response, told the BBC that governments have acted on calls to improve the equipment available to firefighters - the aerial firefighting fleet in particular.

However, the report said that fuel management is another story, and one increasingly out of human control. Despite the scale of Black Summer, there are still dense swathes of bushland - for example surrounding the Sydney basin - which were left largely untouched.

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