Witness describe seeing trees explode from the sheer intensity of the heat and skies raining ash as some of the hottest temperatures on record (117 degrees Fahrenheit or 47 Celsius) combined with raging winds to create perfect conditions for uncontrollable blazes.More than 30,000 firefighters are struggling tonight to make headway against the largest of about a dozen fires in Victoria state that earlier in the day ripped unchecked across at least 115 square miles (30,000 hectares) of forests, farmland and towns.
Police said they believed some of the fires were deliberately lit and may be the result of arsonists or pyroterrorists. In New South Wales state, police detained and questioned a man in connection with a blaze but released him without charge. Australia has some 60,000 fires occur each year, and about half are deliberately lit or suspicious, government research says.
Australia's deadliest fires were in 1983, when blazes killed 75 people and razed more than 3,000 homes in Victoria and South Australia. In 2003, hundreds of houses were destroyed and four people died when a huge blaze tore into the national capital, Canberra. In 2006, nine people died in fires on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula.
See Also:
Australian Drought
Pyroterrorism in California
Climate Change will Effect Economy
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