Vast swathes of southeastern Australia are sweltering in a heatwave, with temperatures soaring to nearly 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) and some residents forced to protect their properties as wildfires rage in parts of rural Victoria state.
Carly Smith hopped on her quad bike and helped herd sheep out of the fast-moving blaze on her farm in the small rural town of Gellibrand, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) southwest of Melbourne.
“We actually had to drive through the fire,” Smith said. “Grass fire, patchy, hot and burning.”
As her father and brother battled the flames with a water tanker attached to the back of a tractor, they saw a male koala emerge from the burnt bushland and collapse to the ground, exhausted and shocked.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology says the current heatwave is the most severe in 16 years. Victoria state recorded its hottest day on record on Tuesday, with temperatures reaching 48.9 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit) in the towns of Hopetown and Walpup, and over 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in the state capital Melbourne.
Temperature records have been broken in neighboring New South Wales and South Australia, with several towns hovering around 50C this week, close to Australia’s all-time record of 50.7C, set in 2022 on the Western Australian coast.
Heat is the most deadly extreme weather event, and the human-induced climate crisis is making heatwaves more severe and longer lasting. Add moisture to the mix and the environment can approach the limits of human survivability, the limits to which our bodies can no longer adapt.
Mr Smith said conditions were dry, but he had experienced dryness in years past.
“I’ve always wondered, every summer, is it Jellibrand’s turn to burn?” she said.
Koala rescued from Australian bushfires
Steve McCullough runs a local hotel in Hopetoun, which, along with the nearby town of Walpup, set a state record temperature of 48.9C (120F) this week.
He said residents of the rural, rural area, which has a population of just 700 people, were used to extreme heat. As temperatures rose, some workers clocked out on their lunch break and other businesses closed early, McCullough said.
He kept pubs open this week, giving shelter to residents, especially those who feared their electricity bills would soar as they turned up their air conditioning.
“We opened our doors and let anyone who was hot know they could come here and just sit with no obligation to buy anything,” he said.
The menu has been changed to help staff avoid extra radiant heat from the grill. In a place where temperatures of 40 degrees are not uncommon, cold beer was available as usual.
“Once it’s over 40 degrees, it doesn’t matter if it’s 42 degrees or 49 degrees. It’s just hot,” McCullough told CNN. “We need to work on it.”
Australian health officials are reminding people to stay hydrated and check on the elderly, children and people with weakened immune systems, who are among the worst affected by the heat.
“Signs of heatstroke are loss of consciousness, confusion and seizures,” Ambulance Victoria executive director of community operations Michael Georgiou said, stressing these were “life-threatening emergencies”.
Mr McCullough said residents were looking out for each other in Victoria’s hottest town.
“Everyone can tell you a story about knocking on a neighbor’s door to check on their safety,” he says.
Wildfires sparked by rising temperatures are threatening a Victorian town, prompting evacuations as volunteer firefighters try to put out blazes around homes. A state of disaster continues as firefighters battle at least five major blazes.
Earlier this week, more than 100,000 homes lost access to electricity due to fire damage and heat-induced grid stress, forcing some residents to weather the heat without air conditioning.
Jellibrand resident Kayla Beale said fires had been looming over the area for about two weeks after a heat wave in early January, and much of the town was evacuated on Saturday.
Beal left the country with her 15-year-old son and dog, but her husband stayed behind to protect their home. “It was terrifying to leave my husband at the mercy of wind and fire,” she told CNN.
The town was completely depleted of safe drinking water after a fire jumped a containment line and damaged the treatment facility that supplies Jellibrand’s drinking water.
Climate experts have warned that the extreme conditions affecting southeastern Australia are a public health emergency caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
“Heat is a silent killer. It kills more Australians than all other extreme weather events combined, with the 2016-2019 heatwave claiming more than 1,000 lives,” Dr Kate Charlesworth, a public health physician in Sydney and an adviser to the Australian Climate Council, said in a statement.
World Weather Attribution scientists have found that the intense heatwave that hit southeastern Australia in early January is five times more likely to occur because of the human-induced climate crisis.
According to the analysis, the heatwave observed over three days from January 7th to 9th was 1.6°C warmer due to climate change.
Mr Smith, another Jellibrand resident, said the koala the family found was examined, fed eucalyptus and released into an unburned rubber tree.
Somehow they survived, but Smith estimates about 90 percent of their 2,000-acre farm was destroyed, and it’s unclear exactly how many sheep and cattle were lost in the blaze.
They’re still not out of the woods, Smith said, as it remains dangerous to get a good count or remove surviving animals from the farm, and fire warnings remain in effect on Friday.
“I think everyone is scared. It’s really terrible, but you can’t help but notice that everyone is coming together,” she said.
“This is a Jellibrand community…everyone really wants to support each other.”
