Brush Fires Endanger Sydney
January 3, 2002
Raging brush fires consuming the areas around Sydney continued unabated for the 11th day, sending thousands of endangered residents running and weary firefighters battling to keep the flames from encroaching further.
More than 7,000 tourists and residents in Sussex Inlet 190 kilometers south of the city fled to the beach Wednesday night as flames engulfed more than 10 homes at the holiday destination. Since the “black Christmas fires” began on Dec. 24 in the in the Burragorang valley west of the city, as many as 5,000 people have been force to leave their homes.
The more than 100 brush fires, many lit by arsonists, have been fed by record humidity, fierce winds and sunny skies. More than 10,000 firefighters, many of them volunteers, have been battling the fires and going door-to-door evacuating residents of the state of New South Wales.
A helicopter capable of dropping 1,980 gallons of water has been bombing a long fireline stretching from the Blue Mountains National Park, which rises up out of the Burragorang valley, to the coast south of Sydney.
Firefighters dug a 250-meter long trench in an effort to fend off flames that were threatening Lan Cove National Park, just north of the city. Firefighters were able to contain blazes in the suburbs north of the city. At one point, the flames reached as close as 17 kilometers from Sydney’s city center.
In all more than 740,000 acres have been consumed by the fire, nicknamed the “Burragong beast,” an area twice the size of greater London.
Police have so far arrested 22 people, 14 of them juveniles, and charged them with arson. Adults convicted of arson face 14 year prison terms in Australia.
New South Wales state premier Bob Carr has said he plans to rexamine whether the maximum prison sentence for arsonists is long enough.
As far the juvenile offenders, Carr said he would like “their noses rubbed in the ashes,” so that they could see the damage they have done.
For now, though, things continue to look bad. Temperatures will most likely climb in the next few days, say meteorologists. The rain is nowhere in sight.