The massive bushfires in Australia are still spreading as heat, high winds, and dry weather push flames through much of the southeastern part of the country.
Australia’s massive fires, as seen from space
Maps and images show where the fires are, and how much smoke they’ve created.
Umair Irfan is a correspondent at Vox writing about climate change, Covid-19, and energy policy. Irfan is also a regular contributor to the radio program Science Friday. Prior to Vox, he was a reporter for ClimateWire at E&E News.
The blazes have proved deadly and destructive, burning through more than 15.6 million acres, or more than 24,000 square miles, an area larger than the state of West Virginia. The fires have now killed at least 24 people and destroyed more than 1,400 homes.
You can see where fires have burned as of Sunday in this map of New South Wales and Victoria; it shows how close these blazes are to cities like Sydney and Port Macquarie.
The smoke from the bushfires has shrouded much of Australia’s southeastern coast, suffusing cities with a crimson and dark orange glow. The thick haze is remarkable even from above. On Saturday, NASA and NOAA captured this image of smoke plumes in southeastern Australia:
It’s hard to overstate just how much smoke has been created. Compare the NASA Landsat satellite image on the left of the southeast coast on July 24, 2019, to the same region on New Year’s Day, during some of the most intense fires this season:
The Japan Meteorological Agency’s Himawari geostationary satellites have also captured the smoke rising from the fires in the southeast and wafting over the ocean, as well as Australia’s first named storm of the year, Tropical Cyclone Blake, which formed along the northwest coast over the weekend:
The ash and soot from Australia’s recent fires have spread as far as New Zealand, turning the fringes of mountaintop glaciers a dusty brown. You can see the brown plume of smoke from the fires in this NASA satellite image from Sunday:
These fires are burning just as Australia is emerging from its hottest, driest year on record. Over the weekend, Sydney reported its hottest temperature on record.
Several unique weather patterns converged over the country to create the hot, dry conditions behind the fires this season. But climate change is a major factor, with average temperatures rising across Australia and the most populated parts of the country receiving less rainfall over time, worsening the risk of extreme wildfires.
Beyond obscuring scenic vistas, smoke is a major health hazard, with the smallest particles doing the most damage. This map shows concentrations of PM2.5, particles smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter. You can see that PM2.5 levels have spiked near the major fires:
During the most intense fires, the thick smoke left Australians in cities like Canberra with the worst air quality in the world, reaching conditions that were 20 times more polluted than the limit for hazardous pollution levels.
Poor air quality can increase the incidence of breathing problems and contribute to conditions like heart attacks. One woman died last week from breathing the air in Canberra shortly after getting off a plane in the city. So even far away from the front lines of the fire, many Australians are suffering from the blazes. There is little respite on the horizon this week, and the worst health impacts of these bushfires is yet to come.
By Jessica Machado
