AUSTRALIAN WILDFIRE
Do you know what ‘s happening right now in Australia? If you don’t well this is the time that
you will know about it. Imagine watching your beloved Country burning by over a Million
hectares. Well this is how Australians experiencing today.
Australia is the world’s driest continent with a harsh hot winds. Bushfires are regular
occurrences that sadly are a natural part of Australia’s weather cycle. A Bushfire is a wildfire
that occurs in the bush (collective term for forest ,scrub ,woodland or grassland of Australia,
New Zealand, New Caledonia).
The Operational Land Imager on NASA-USGS Landsat 8 satellites acquired natural-color
images of charred land and thick smoke covering Australia’s Kangaroo Island, where nearly
one-third of the land area had burned. An annotated image of kangaroo island shows the
burn scars, fires and smoke on Jan.9 2020.
The main cause of fire ignitions of Australia’s bushfires is dry lightning, essentinally lightning
from thunderstorms that don’t produce rain.
The devastating bushfire are exacting a heavy human toll. At lease 24 people have died. Wild
animals have fared worst. There is a widely-reported estimate that almost half a billion
animals have been killed by the Bush fires in Australia such as Koalas and Kangaroos.
The estimated burnt area has been revised to approximately 10.2 million hectares (5.3 million
hectares in NSW) for the current fire season. In total more than 2,570 houses have been
destroyed.
For a student like me as Australia deals with devastating Bushfires,Our hearts go out to the
Communities and Ecosystem that have been affected.We feel sad for what is going on in
Australia this days but Happy because of the people that’s sending Help and support to stop
the bushfire in Australia.
JAN CARLA S. PEDREGOSA