Wildfires destroy hundreds of homes, cause thousands to flee in Australia in one week
by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – Wildfires sweeping through Australia have caused thousands to flee and burned 381 homes to the ground in the last week, with officials not expecting the fires to let up until significant rainfalls come in a few months.
Besides the hundreds of homes that have been incinerated, eight people are thought to have died from the fires in the eastern coastal regions of New South Wales and Victoria, bringing the total from this past summer’s wildfire season to 17 dead and 1,300 homes destroyed.
New South Wales State transport minister Andrew Constance called the exodus of the last week the “largest mass relocation of people out of the region that we’ve ever seen,” with fire officials saying the fires are expected to kick up and become worse by Saturday.
Over 200 fires continue to burn across southeastern Australia, which officials estimate to have already licked up 12.35 million acres of land, deteriorating the air quality in the national capital of Canberra to the point where it was recently judged the worst in the world.