Australian officials declared a state of emergency for the capital city of Canberra and surrounding regions on Friday, as soaring temperatures and strong winds threatened to propel a large bushfire beyond the control of firefighters.
One in two Australians have donated money to support bushfire relief efforts, a new survey showed over the weekend, with meteorologists warning more hot and dry weather is to return after a heavy rain respite dampened many of the blazes.
Soaring temperatures are set to stoke simmering bushfires in Australia's southeast on Thursday with Sydney forecast to hit 41 degrees Celsius following a few days of reprieve.
A secret operation by specialist firefighters has saved the world's last stand of Wollemi Pines, a pre-historic species known as “dinosaur trees”, from Australia's unprecedented bushfires, officials said.
Australian Open qualifying was disrupted for a second successive day due to poor air quality on Wednesday as smoke from bushfires continued to blanket Melbourne in an acrid haze. Organizers of the year's first Grand Slam said practice had been suspended at Melbourne Park until 11am and qualifiers would not get under way until 1pm.
The vast clouds of smoke from Australia's historic bush fires are expected to circle the Earth and return to the country, Nasa says. The US agency said satellites have been monitoring the movement of the smoke high in the atmosphere as it swirled east towards South America and beyond.
After weeks of criticism over the handling of the bushfires scorching Australia, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Sunday he will propose a national review into the response to the disaster, as the fires claimed another firefighter's life.
Australian authorities warned people on Wednesday to prepare for another wave of evacuations as temperatures in the country's southeast began to rise after a days-long cool spell, bringing the danger of revitalized blazes.
Smoke from bushfires raging across Australia reached Brazil on Tuesday, an arm of the National Institute for Space Research said on Twitter. Referring to satellite images, the agency's Department of Remote Sensing said the smoke had arrived in Brazil's southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul.
The cloud of smoke caused by raging bushfires in Australia has been spotted more than 12,000km away in Chile and Argentina, weather authorities in the South American countries said on Monday. Meteorologists in Uruguay expect the cloud in the next 24 hours.