A boost from the sky. In Australia, heavy rain fell this Friday, helping exhausted firefighters after several months of fighting the flames. Despite this milder weather, dozens of fires remain out of control.
This Friday, the heaviest precipitation for nearly ten years fell on certain regions located near the most important blaze. "In the past 24 hours, rain has fallen over most of the fire-damaged areas, which is great news," said the New South Wales rural fire department. "We are crossing our fingers that this will continue in the days to come".
Rains expected for the weekend
However, thirty fires still escaped this Friday out of control in this state, a figure unchanged from Thursday, said the same source. Dozens of fires also continued to burn in the southern state of Victoria. However, rain did not fall on Kangaroo Island, a veritable sanctuary for exceptional flora and fauna, located to the south, off the coast of Adelaide.
The flames devastated the national park of this island, killing a large part of its population of koalas and threatening to completely eradicate certain endemic species of birds and marsupials. Nevertheless, the prospect of wetter weather in eastern and southern Australia over the next few days still left hope. Heavy rain is expected throughout the weekend over New South Wales, whose capital is Sydney.
Koalas saved from the rains
In Australia, these exceptionally large fires have already killed 28 people and destroyed thousands of homes. This seasonal crisis has been fueled by particularly hot and dry weather in recent months over the huge country. Scientists estimate that more than a billion animals are killed across Australia.
A large part of their habitats have been destroyed and environmental associations have warned against the risk of the extinction of certain species. The famous koalas focus a large part of the attention. As of Friday morning, some koalas and other animals from Australia's reptile park on the east coast of New South Wales had to be rescued from the torrential rains. "It's amazing, just last week we had meetings every day on the imminent threat of forest fires," said park manager Tim Faulkner.
Since the start of this crisis, an area of 100,000 square kilometers - larger than the size of South Korea - has gone up in smoke. The immensity of this destruction is one example of the catastrophic consequences of climate change that the planet will be facing more and more frequently, scientists pointed out.
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