Australian firefighters used a break from searing temperatures to strengthen containment lines around huge wildfires as the financial and environmental costs of the crisis mounted
Across New South Wales, 130 fires were still burning on Tuesday, around 50 of which were uncontrolled. The day’s cooler, rainier weather was providing thousands of weary firefighters a “psychological and emotional” reprieve as they scrambled to strengthen containment lines around the blazes before temperatures rise again, said Shane Fitzsimmons, commissioner of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service.
“It really is about shoring up protection to limit the damage potential and the outbreak of these fires over the coming days,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. The rain was not heavy enough to extinguish the blazes. Victoria state Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville said on Monday at least 8 inches of rain would need to fall in a short time to snuff out the fires — around 20 times what has fallen across the region in the past day. And officials warned that Australia's wildfire season — which generally lasts through March — was nowhere near its end.
The rain was also complicating firefighters’ attempts to strategically backburn certain areas, and was making the ground slippery for fire trucks. Anxious, weary and frustrated after living through months of fires already, many Australians have focused their fury on the prime minister, whose response to the crisis has been roundly criticized as lax, and at times, dismissive. Morrison faced particularly fierce backlash for taking a family vacation to Hawaii in the midst of the disaster.toward the recovery effort in addition to the tens of millions of dollars that have already been promised.
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