what were the australia fires caused by?
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Australia's deadly fires have been fuelled by a combination of extreme heat, prolonged drought and strong winds. The country is in the grip of a heatwave, with record-breaking temperatures over the last three months.
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Australia's fires are 46% bigger than last year's Brazilian Amazon blazes. There are at least 2 months of fire season to go. ... Since September, bushfires have razed an estimated 25 million acres in Australia.
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Unseasonably high temperatures and drought over the last three months have contributed to the conditions that have allowed the fires to proliferate. ... And in Australia we've just experienced record high temperatures," Mark Howden, director of the Climate Change Institute at Australian National University, told Reuters.
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Australia fires: British firefighters to assist with clean-up. A group of about 300 serving and retired firefighters are heading to Australia to help rebuild communities hit by bushfires.
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While bush fires are an annual occurrence in Australia and deadlier fires have occurred there, this fire season began unusually early and is projected to last for months. Australia just had its hottest and driest year on record, and December was one of the top two hottest months in the country's history.
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Officials In Australia's New South Wales Celebrate: 'All Fires Are Now Contained' Firefighters spray water on a smoldering tree in the wake of a bushfire near Bumbalong in New South Wales, Australia. February has brought much-needed rain to the state, where fires have burned about 13.3 million acres of land.
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Send this by. Only about 1 per cent of the land burnt in NSW this bushfire season can be officially attributed to arson, and it is even less in Victoria, the ABC can reveal. The world has been shocked by the scenes of devastation as the unprecedented destruction of Australia's horror bushfire season rages on.
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One firefighter has died and tens of thousands of people have been told to evacuate because of wildfires raging across Australia on Monday. The total number of firefighters killed across Australia is now 10, as high temperatures and winds drive the blazes across the dry landscape.
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A 2008 study found that in Australia about 85% of fires were triggered by human activity - this includes arson, but also carelessness or recklessness. According to Australia's National Centre for Research in Bushfire and Arson, 13% of bushfires every year are deliberate and 37% are suspicious.
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Currently, fires are largely burning across the states of Victoria, where Melbourne is; New South Wales, where Sydney is; and South Australia, where Adelaide is. Military ships and aircraft have been deployed to deliver water, food and fuel to towns cut off by the fires, as well as to rescue those who are stranded.
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Natural causes- Many forest fires start from natural causes such as lightning which set trees on fire. ... Man made causes- Fire is caused when a source of fire like naked flame, cigarette or bidi, electric spark or any source of ignition comes into contact with inflammable material.
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Putting Climate Change over Land Management According to Australian Capital Territory foresters, climate change isn't to blame for Australia's fires, but “long unburnt fuels in national parks.” The same could be said of many of California's recent wildfires, as previously reported here.
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A combination of the intense heat and strong winds during Australia's summer months has made the fires spread rapidly across parts of the country. The direction of the wind also has a massive effect on the areas that are being affected by the flames.
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The loss, and the blazes in the surrounding rain forests, alarmed scientists, who said that such fires were extremely rare in the usually cool and wet area. The fires have burned across the country in recent months, affecting four out of six states. Australia's east coast has been hardest hit.
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While climate change is not the direct cause of the bushfires, scientists have long warned that a hotter, drier climate would contribute to Australia's fires becoming more frequent and more intense.
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1) The fires ignited amid a record-breaking heat wave The fires are concentrated along Australia's southeast coast, in the states of New South Wales and Victoria.
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Hot, dry weather combined with ongoing drought and strong winds have created the perfect conditions for fire to spread quickly. Bushfires can originate from both human activity and natural causes - with lightning being the predominant natural source.