Eighty Bushfires Ignite Parts of Tasmania

Out-of-control bushfires are still raging in Tasmania’s northwest.
Several communities are at risk from embers from the fires and residents are voluntarily leaving their homes as firefighters try to bring these bushfires under control. One of the 80 fires burning around the state was an out-of-control campfire lit at the Black River campground in the northwest. Of the currently burning 80 fires, 51 are out of control and about a dozen are at advice level which means that an incident has started and people in the area should keep up to date with developments. Only one fire, the Mayberry Fire near Mersey Forest, is at the heightened alert level which means that conditions are changing; residents need to start taking action now to protect themselves.

The Tasmania Fire Service said about 36,000 hectares (88,957 acres) had been burnt and the largest number of fires is in the Lake Mackenzie area near Mole Creek.

This natural-color satellite image was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite on January 21, 2016. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS’s thermal bands, are outlined in red.

NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption: NASA/Goddard, Lynn Jenner with information from the Tasmania Fire Service. Larger image