Australia Wildfires

Drought, wildfires and now flooding have given Australia’s weather an almost Biblical feel this year.

Lawmakers have commemorated wildfire victims and praised the heroism of firefighters in Australia’s Parliament as hundreds of protesters rallied outside demanding more policy action on climate change

Australia’s capital and its surrounds have declared a state of emergency because of an out-of-control forest fire burning erratically to its south

The bodies of three U.S. flying firefighters and the cockpit voice recorder from the water bomber in which they died battling Australia’s unprecedented wildfire crisis have been retrieved

Three Americans died Thursday when their aerial water tanker crashed as they were fighting fires in southeastern Australia.

Australia’s forests are burning at a rate unmatched in modern times and scientists say the landscape is being permanently altered as a warming climate brings profound changes to the island continent. Heat waves and drought have fueled bigger and more frequent fires in parts of Australia, so far this season torching some 40,000 square miles (104,000 square kilometers), an area about...

Taylor is part of a group of dogs who are trained to smell koala fur and rescue injured ones from Australi’s brushfires.

Australia’s unprecedented wildfires season has so far charred 40,000 square miles (104,000 square kilometers) of brushland, rainforests, and national parks — killing by one estimate more than a billion wild animals. Scientists fear some of the island continent’s unique and colorful species may not recover. For others, they are trying to throw lifelines....

Where flames have subsided, biologists are starting to...

A baby koala named “Hope” has left his mother’s pouch at Zoo Miami. It is the first baby koala born in captivity at the zoo in 30 years.

Thousands of crafters worldwide are churning out swaddling wraps for bats, hanging enclosures for kangaroos, and cozy pouches for wallabies. They hope to help wildlife harmed in the Australian wildfires. But there’s confusion over whether the items are really needed or will be used.

Ash Graham’s dog, Kozi, wakes him at 8 a.m., eager for his morning walk. Then Graham realizes he was dreaming, and gets up from the one-man tent he’s been sleeping in each night since a wildfire swept through his village on New Year’s Eve.

Crews battling Australia’s wildfires said Sunday that they have been able to turn from defense to offense for the first time in weeks thanks to a break in the weather.

Amid the horrors of the country’s worst bushfires ever, and amid disputes over their cause and fear of what is yet to come, Australians have organized a series of grassroots disaster-relief networks — many through social media — offering a wide range of help to thousands of people who were displaced in recent weeks, NBC News reports. Doctors, pharmacists, nurses…

The wildfires have scorched an area twice the size of the U.S. state of Maryland, killed at least 25 people and destroyed 2,000 homes. The fires, fueled by drought and the country’s hottest and driest year on record, have been raging since September, months earlier than is typical for Australia’s annual wildfire season.

Communities across Australia’s fire-ravaged southeast were bracing for a long day of mounting danger on Friday as thousands abandon their homes for evacuation centers and military helicopters dropped emergency supplies to towns at risk of being isolated by blazes fanned by rising winds.

As Australia continues to deal with a series of wildfires that have devastated the nation, a suburban woman and a few of her friends are looking to give kangaroos impacted by the fires a small bit of comfort. For Becky Colson, every stitch is a labor of love, as she is using her love of sewing to help kangaroos and…

Kangaroos impacted by wildfires in Australia are getting a little help from a suburban woman and her friends, and NBC 5’s Charlie Wojciechowski has the story....
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For more information on how you can help:...

–...Animal Rescue Craft Guild’s Facebook page...

-Quilting in the Valley Quilt Shop...

To obtain patterns to be used for animal rescue projects, you can email...ILsubhubarcc@gmail.com...

With at least an eighth of the koala population already killed in the Australian wildfires, repopulation for that already vulnerable species will take the work of conservationists and animal advocates across the world.

Increasingly intense wildfires that have scorched forests from California to Australia are stoking worry about long-term health impacts from smoke exposure in affected cities and towns.

Elton John and Chris Hemsworth have each pledged to donate $1 million toward the Australia wildfires relief effort. Hemsworth is from Australia and says “every penny counts.” John said during his concert in Sydney, Australia, that wanted to bring attention to the devastation that wildfires have caused, saying it has reached a “biblical scale.”