The numbers are difficult to even comprehend. By late January, with many sections of Australia still ablaze, the nation's latest fire season had left more than 27 million acres burned (an area roughly the size of Virginia) and at least 30 people dead, and had produced a smoke plume large enough to cover the continental U.S. By one estimate, over a billion animals perished.
"It's such a big number, you forget how much suffering is involved," says Gerardo Huertas, who leads disaster operations and risk reduction worldwide for the global nonprofit World Animal Protection (and who recently traveled to Australia to provide technical assistance). "Animals can't necessarily outrun the fires, and they can't escape them by climbing into trees. Koalas, for instance, live in eucalyptus trees, which catch fire like they're made of gasoline."
Some wildfires were so hot they generated their own storm systems, which then spread fire even further through lightning strikes. One such strike was responsible for the fire tornado on Kangaroo Island—a wildlife sanctuary with such a high level of biodiversity it's been likened to Noah's Ark—where half the island's koala population, which numbered around 50,000, was feared dead.
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