{"id":168721,"date":"2021-02-02T12:04:07","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T09:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/australias-perth-battles-bushfire-amid-virus-lockdown\/"},"modified":"2021-02-02T12:04:07","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T09:04:07","slug":"australias-perth-battles-bushfire-amid-virus-lockdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/australias-perth-battles-bushfire-amid-virus-lockdown\/","title":{"rendered":"#Australia’s Perth battles bushfire amid virus lockdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Australia’s Perth battles bushfire amid virus lockdown<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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\"Firefighters
\n Firefighters are battling the out-of-control bushfire on the city’s eastern fringes, where several properties are ablaze
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A wildfire on the fringes of Australia’s fourth-largest city Perth has destroyed several homes and forced emergency evacuations, authorities said Tuesday, just days after the west coast city entered a coronavirus lockdown.<\/p>\n


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Firefighters are battling the out-of-control bushfire on the city’s eastern fringes, where several properties are ablaze and several fields have been blackened.<\/p>\n

Smoke from the fires sent ash falling in the Perth city centre, around 30 kilometres (18 miles) away.<\/p>\n

Firefighters were said to be working in “extremely volatile” conditions with temperatures set to hit 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 Fahrenheit).<\/p>\n

“The fire is currently 7,000 hectares in size with the perimetre of around 75 kilometres (47 miles),” Department of Fire and Emergency Services Deputy Commissioner Craig Waters told media<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Strong winds overnight forced significant numbers of residents to flee with hundreds expected at evacuation centres, Waters said.<\/p>\n

Locals said they were woken by emergency alerts in the earlier hours of Tuesday. <\/p>\n

“I think it was around 3am, we were standing from our balcony in The Vines and we could see the fire over the hill coming closer,” a woman at an evacuation centre told the ABC.<\/p>\n

Although crews were still assessing the damage, local mayor Kevin Bailey told national broadcaster ABC at least 30 homes were damaged.<\/p>\n

One firefighter was recovering in hospital from smoke inhalation but there were no other reports of injuries, Bailey said.<\/p>\n

The news<\/a> comes as Perth entered its second full day of a five-day lockdown after a security guard at a quarantine hotel tested positive for Covid-19.<\/p>\n

“Right now, WA is battling two different kinds of emergencies, a dangerous fire emergency and a Covid-19 lockdown emergency,” Premier Mark McGowan told media.<\/p>\n

Under the lockdown, around two million residents of the city, along with residents of nearby Peel and South-West regions, must stay at home.<\/p>\n

Authorities believe the guard contracted the UK-strain of Covid-19 from a returned travel<\/a>ler quarantining in a hotel in Perth.<\/p>\n

The UK variant is among several new strains believed to be more contagious.<\/p>\n

Western Australia was spared the brunt of Australia’s devastating 2019-2020 climate change-fuelled wildfires, which mostly ravaged the country’s two most populous states, New South Wales and Victoria.<\/p>\n\n

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Out-of-control Australian bushfire threatens Perth homes\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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\n \u00a9 2021 AFP<\/p>\n

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Citation<\/strong>:
\n Australia’s Perth battles bushfire amid virus lockdown (2021, February 2)
\n retrieved 2 February 2021
\n from https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2021-02-australia-perth-bushfire-virus-lockdown.html<\/p>\n

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\n part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n