Residents of Western Australia were instructed to leave their houses on Saturday as a bushfire raged out of control near the state’s capital of Perth, as temperatures soared.
More than 40 bushfires were reported burning on Saturday in Australia’s largest state. Officials warned that residents in the shire of Chittering, located about 60 kilometers north of Perth, were at risk due to the uncontained blaze.
Australia is currently in the midst of a high-risk bushfire season following the onset of an El Nino weather event, known for extreme events such as wildfires, cyclones, and droughts.
The state’s Department of Fire and Emergency Services issued an urgent warning on its website regarding the fire in Chittering, a rural area with approximately 6,000 residents. They stated, “You are in danger and need to act immediately to survive. There is a threat to lives and homes.”
The emergency alert coincided with a heatwave warning in place on Saturday for many parts of the state, heightening the risk of bushfire outbreaks. A maximum temperature of 41 degrees Celsius (105.8 degrees Fahrenheit) was forecast for Perth, nearly 10 degrees higher than the city’s average January maximum.
Australia’s previous two fire seasons were relatively quiet compared to the catastrophic 2019-2020 “Black Summer” of bushfires, which destroyed an area equivalent to the size of Turkey and resulted in 33 fatalities.
(Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
