Bushfire smoke blows into Australia's capital as fire threat eases

Bushfires eased nearAustralia'scapital, Canberra, on Monday, as temperatures dipped, but officials warned heavysmokewas set to blow into the city with a shift in the wind.

While afirecontinued to burn out of control southwest of Canberra, warnings were downgraded to "advice" for people in the area, with no properties underthreat.

Around a quarter of the land in the AustralianCapitalTerritory, home to Canberra, has been hit by wildfires over the past few weeks, fueled by hot and windy conditions. Temperatures fell on Monday to around 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit).

Add WION as a Preferred Source

"A change in wind direction is expected to bring heavysmokeover urban areas of Canberra," the AustralianCapitalTerritory (ACT) Emergency Services said on its web site.

Firefighters in New South Wales were battling blazes in the state's southeast, where seven homes were destroyed over the weekend, the NSW RuralFireService said. Conditions eased on Monday with showers and cooler temperatures.

Australia'sprolongedbushfireseason has killed 33 people and an estimated 1 billion native animals since September. About 2,500 homes have been destroyed and more than 11.7 million hectares (45,175 square miles) of tinder-dry bushland have been razed.

Thefirecrisis led 274 scientists to urge the Australian government, which has refused to raise targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, to take more drastic action and move toward net-zero emissions by 2050.

"Australia'sdangerousfire-weather is virtually certain to worsen in the future with ongoing human-induced climate change, makingfiremanagement increasingly challenging," the climate andfireexperts from all over the world said in an open letter.

Thefires have also damaged thousands of kilometers of power lines, destroyed more than 5,000 power poles and cut power to 80,000 homes, industry group Energy Networks Australia said on Monday.

"The devastation has been unprecedented," it said.