Australia on standby for fire threat as heat, winds return

SYDNEY (REUTERS, AFP) - Australian authorities warned on Friday (Jan 31) of severe fire danger in densely populated areas this weekend, declaring a state of emergency in the capital, Canberra, as soaring temperatures and strong whipped up huge, unpredictable blazes.

With temperatures above 40 Celsius, emergency officials urged people to prepare for fires in parts of the southeast including hundreds of kilometres of coast south of Sydney that has already been badly hit in months of blazes.

"Tomorrow will be the peak of the heatwave in NSW with some areas expected to reach extreme heatwave conditions," the New South Wales (NSW) state Rural Fire Service said in a Facebook post late on Friday.

Since September, Australia has been battling bush fires that have killed 33 people and an estimated one billion native animals, while 2,500 homes and more than 11.7 million hectares across Australia's most populous states have been burned.

Andrew Barr, chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), said the area's first state of emergency since fatal wildfires in 2003 indicated the danger this weekend. Four people were killed and almost 500 homes destroyed in 2003.

Officials said an out-of-control fire in the ACT's south, on the doorstep of Canberra, had grown to 21,500ha and could hit southern suburbs in the city of 400,000 people.

"This fire may become very unpredictable. It may become uncontrollable," Barr said in a televised briefing. "The combination of extreme heat, wind, and a dry landscape will place suburbs in Canberra's south at risk."

The state of emergency will run for 72 hours, giving authorities greater powers to order evacuations, close roads and take control of property.

Victoria state, which adjoins NSW, is also expected to see heatwave conditions on the weekend.

There were 60 active fires in NSW, one at emergency level, 27 in Victoria, of which three were at emergency level.

Storms are forecast to follow the heatwave, bringing rain that could help dampen fires but also the potential for wild weather, including flash flooding. Severe storms have hit parts of South Australia and Victoria on Friday.

The months-long crisis has sparked renewed calls for Australia's conservative government to take immediate action on climate change, with street protests urging Prime Minister Scott Morrison to reduce the country's reliance on coal.

Scientists say the bush fire disaster was exacerbated by climate change, coming on the back of a crippling drought that turned forests into a tinderbox and allowed blazes to spread out of control quickly.

Keen to dampen public anger, Mr Morrison on Friday pledged funding for emissions reduction projects as part of a A$2 billion (S$1.83 billion) package to increase gas supplies in NSW.

Mr Morrison said the extra gas will stabilise the NSW electricity grid, allowing for greater renewable energy generation. But critics said the package was too focused on fossil fuels and was not the sort of climate policy that would reduce the risk from worse bushfires in the future.

In neighbouring New Zealand, where smoke from the Australian blazes has turned glaciers brown, firefighters were battling to contain about 25 fires that spread rapidly to cover about 100 hectares on the South Island. Heatwave conditions were also forecast for much of the country over the weekend.