Mount
Victoria, Australia. Firefighters were racing to tame an enormous blaze in
southeastern Australia on Monday with officials warning it could merge with
others to create a “mega-fire” if weather conditions worsen.
Crews have
been battling fires that flared in high winds and searing heat across the state
of New South Wales last week with more than 200 homes so far destroyed and many
others damaged.
While
dozens of blazes have been contained, 58 were still alight and 14 of them were
out of control, enveloping Sydney in a thick white smoke haze that prompted
warnings for people to stay indoors and avoid exercise.
The main
concern Monday was near the town of Lithgow west of Sydney where a huge fire
that has already burned nearly 40,000 hectares was threatening the communities
of Bilpin, Bell, Clarence and Dargan.
Officials
fear intensifying heat and winds on Tuesday and Wednesday could push it into
another blaze at nearby Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains and then move
towards the populated areas of Katoomba and Leura.
“I don’t
think I’ve ever used the word mega-fire,” said New South Wales Rural Fire
Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons.
“But the
reality is that the modelling indicates that there’s every likelihood that in
the forecast weather conditions that these two fires, particularly up in the
back end of the mountains, will merge at some point.”
Firefighters
spent the night and much of Monday building containment lines to try to prevent
such an event, ahead of a predicted deterioration in weather conditions.
Another
major fire around the Springwood area of the Blue Mountains, where almost 200
houses were razed last week, escalated to the emergency declaration level along
with another in Wilton, southwest of Sydney.
“The fire
grounds remain dynamic and challenging for firefighters and are particularly
susceptible to the wind and the elevated temperatures that we are
experiencing,” Fitzsimmons said.
But the
fire chief played down earlier suggestions that all communities in the Blue
Mountains, where 76,000 people live, could be evacuated.
“We are not
planning a mass evacuation of the Blue Mountains community,” he said.
Instead
authorities were taking “a very targeted approach to securing and protecting
all the communities.”
An
emergency warning was issued for the Blue Mountains village of Bell, where
residents were urged to evacuate. Other township residents were told to shelter
in their homes or warned that they faced several days of isolation without
electricity.
This
included people in the village of Mount Wilson, which was used as the backdrop
for scenes in the recent Hollywood blockbuster “The Great Gatsby” starring
Leonardo DiCaprio.
Amid the
worst fire disaster in the state for nearly 50 years, New South Wales declared
a state of emergency on Sunday, which gives firefighters the power to forcibly
evacuate people, with penalties for refusing.
Emergency
Services Minister Mike Gallacher said every possible resource was being used,
including firefighters drafted in from interstate with the option that the
military could be deployed.
With
hundreds of people evacuated due to the encroaching flames, police revealed
they were dealing with reports of looting from victims, although the number of
incidents was small.
State
Premier Barry O’Farrell called looters “scumbags” and vowed to track them down.
Meanwhile,
an 11-year-old boy was charged with deliberately lighting two fires on the New
South Wales Central Coast last week, one of which forced hundreds of people to
flee their homes and saw the closure of Newcastle airport.
A
14-year-old youth faced similar charges over a blaze north of Sydney.
Wildfires
are common in Australia’s summer months, which run from December-February. But
an unusually dry and warm winter and record spring temperatures has seen the
2013/14 fire season start early with warnings of a long, tough summer ahead.
Agence France-Presse
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