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WAM Australia has appealed to raise funds to support through Bendigo Bank's Bush Fire Support Program. Thanks to WAM members and others for contributing $2559 towards this appeal
About Bush Fires:
Australia is no stranger to bushfires. However, the 2019-2020 season proved to be unprecedented in many ways. The first major bushfires began even before the official arrival of spring in June and then new out-of-control fires sprung up at the beginning of Sept. 2019.
The fire situation worsened significantly at the beginning of November 2019 with increasing temperatures and a prolonged drought. In mid-January 2020, a wave of heavy rain finally brought relief in some areas hit by bushfires but was nowhere near sufficient to extinguish the fires.
The bushfires burned more than 46 million acres (72,000 square miles) – roughly the same area as the entire country of Syria. At least 3,500 homes and thousands of other buildings were lost and 34 people died in the thousands of fires between September 2019 and March 2020. The majority of deaths and destruction were in New South Wales (NSW), while the Northern Territory accounted for approximately 1/3 of the burned area. At least 80% of the Blue Mountains World Heritage area in NSW and 53% of the Gondwana world heritage rainforests in Queensland (QLD) were burned. Many of the other buildings that were lost were farm buildings, adding to the challenge of agricultural recovery that is already complex because of ash-covered farmland accompanied by historic levels of drought.