Australia’s bushfire crisis worsened Thursday night into Friday as hot, dry and windy conditions redeveloped across the country’s hard-hit southeast, causing two large blazes to merge into one. The new “megafire” measures about 1.5 million acres, about the size of the state of Delaware or roughly eight times as large as New York City.
“What we’re really seeing with a number of these fires merging is a number of small fires started by lightning strikes, across the landscape,” New South Wales Rural Fire Service spokesman Anthony Clark told the Sydney Morning Herald. “And as they grow, we see fires merging,” Clark said.
Separately, an emergency warning was issued for a blaze in the Southern Highlands region, known as the Morton Fire, that threatened populated areas. As of midday Friday, firefighters were battling 147 fires in New South Wales, with one at the emergency level, the highest warning category, as a wind shift moved from south to north along the coast.