Forest fire season is coming. How can we stop the Amazon burning?

The Guardian investigates fire in the state of Pará - to reveal the loopholes that allow deforestation to be legitimised

We found the first fire without looking, crackling and roaring on farmland beside the busy Amazon highway, the flames consuming a road sign with its name – BR-163 – lying in the grass. Trucks thundered past, ferrying soya and corn from the agricultural heartlands of Brazil’s central-west to the ports of Santarém and Miritituba. Nobody was around.

Every year fires roar across the Amazon, and in just a few months they will be here again. But last August the number of blazes reached a nine-year high, and sparked an international crisis for Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro. Months later, their traces hung over the forests in the Amazon state of Pará, leaving blackened logs and charred tree stumps where there was once rainforest.

Photograph: João Laet/The Guardian

But what happens to the land afterwards, especially in protected reserves? Is anyone punished for burning the forests? Are the forests allowed to grow back? Most of all, what can we expect from this year’s fire season? Late last year, reporters from the Guardian and investigative site Réporter Brasil spent a week at reserves along the BR-163 to find out.

We started in the hardscrabble settlers’ town of Novo Progresso in the state of Pará, with its plethora of gold shops serving the largely-illegal wildcat mining trade. Police are still investigating Novo Progresso farmers for allegedly coordinating a “fire day” last August to show Bolsonaro their will to work – fires soared by 300% around the town that day. The town sits beside the Jamanxim national forest, a protected reserve of more than 1.3 million hectares (3 million acres) that is one of the most devastated in Brazil. Where better to begin?

Rapacious history

The first morning we steered the rented 4x4 along a dirt road out of Novo Progresso, bouncing over potholes as it snaked in and out of the Jamanxim forest. This forest is managed by the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio), a federal environment agency named after the rubber tapper, activist and environmentalist who won international acclaim before being murdered in 1988 by cattle ranchers.

Inside Jamanxim’s borders, as forest gave way to a sweep of cattle farms, we found more fire: a patch of forest still smouldering in places, trees swiped at waist height, and the felled, blackened trunk of a regal brazil nut tree in the scorched earth. An extensive search of government websites, publicly available information and internal ICMBio documents revealed that this very patch of forest has an emblematic history of environmental offences and fires.

This smouldering land fell inside the 889 hectares of land registered in 2015 by Jair Ferreira de Souza, a Novo Progresso resident, on Pará state government’s Rural Register (CAR), just inside the borders of the Jamanxim forest. In 2017 and 2018 Nasa satellites spotted fires on this land, and in 2015 and 2019 De Souza was fined more than £500,000 for destroying hundreds of acres within it by environment officials who photographed cattle branded with his initials: JF.

Recent burn on land registered to Jair Ferreira de Souza inside the protected Jamanxim Forest reserve. Photograph: João Laet/The Guardian

De Souza has appealed the fines, none of which have been paid. He told officials that he needed pasture and denied that one patch of destroyed forest was his. He claimed his family had owned land here for 30 years, arguing that he had cleared only a minimal area he needed to work, and requested one fine be annulled because he was unable to pay it.

Souza did not respond to messages sent to his phone.

But to understand how Jair Ferreira de Souza is able to claim ownership of land within a federally protected forest, we need to step back into the Amazon’s chaotic and rapacious history of colonisation.

The landgrabbers

The military dictatorship that ruled Brazil until 1985 – often lauded by Bolsonaro - encouraged migration and built highways to force development into the Amazon region, but failed to impose a functioning property system. Instead, it sold off chunks of forest – then largely government owned – to private investors. It also handed out lots to migrants who had been encouraged to move there from the poorer north-east.

Much of this land was sold on later, often in deals involving unscrupulous notaries in a range of scams that continue until today, aided by the remoteness and lawlessness of the Amazon region. Adding to the disorder, under Brazilian law, improving land you are on can strengthen an eventual ownership claim. And Amazon farmers often argue that previous governments had encouraged them to move to the region, only to plonk a reserve on top of them years later even if they actually squatted the land afterwards.

Cattle grazing on a ranch inside the Jamanxim Forest protected reserve. Photograph: João Laet/The Guardian

“As long as it’s confusing, as long it’s undetermined who owns what, the guys with the lawyers, the guys with the guns and the influence always win,” said Jeremy Campbell, an associate professor of anthropology at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, who specialises in Amazon land conflicts.

Landgrabbers – nicknamed grileiros, or crickets, after the tested ruse of leaving fake land titles in drawers full of the insects whose secretions turn them yellow and convincingly old-looking – proliferate in the Amazon.

Having some sort of document is key to eventually legitimising stolen land. These days farmers register their own land online – as was done for de Souza – but often there is more than one claimant for the same area. In Pará, there are around three times as many land titles as there is land, state prosecutor Jane Souza said in an interview. In December, Bolsonaro signed a measure allowing grileiros to claim up to 2,500 hectares (6,177 acres) of land squatted before 2018 under certain conditions, such as no environmental fines or embargoes. This needs to be approved by Congress.

The Jamanxim national forest reserve we were in was created in 2006 to slow rampant deforestation. Farms in the reserve were supposed to be repossessed by the government, but that never happened. Commercial agriculture is not permitted there but many local people have never accepted its reserve status.

Paulo Moreira, a federal prosecutor in Pará, explained in an interview that protected areas like Jamanxim are attractive to speculators who buy illegally cleared land cheaply to sell on, or deforest it themselves, betting it will be regularised in the future and increase in value. “Crime compensates – and that makes it attractive,” Moreira said.

Laudi Rodrigues da Silva, 72 years old. Works in the central market of Novo Progresso, Pará. Photograph: João Laet/The Guardian

We spoke to residents of Novo Progresso who clearly saw themselves as hard-working pioneers in a hostile wilderness.

 “Wood, gold prospecting and now cattle made this town,” Jadir Rosa told us. The 36-year-old mechanic had moved from Paraná state in the south of Brazil and was lunching in the town’s market. Rosa supported Bolsonaro and shared his government’s scepticism over climate science. “Global warming does not exist,” he said.

Other residents similarly harboured little sympathy for environment officials. Laudi da Silva, a 72-year-old market stall holder and Bolsonaro supporter, complained that her brother’s wildcat mining barge had been destroyed during an operation by environment officials. “They’re always burning things round here,” she said. “I don’t like it.”

Agamenon Menezes, the influential president of the town’s rural producers’ union, has been interviewed by police in connection with the “fire day” investigation, and his computer seized, but he denied involvement during an interview at his union’s headquarters. He argued that “fire day” had been invented by the media to attack Bolsonaro and that there were no more fires last August than in any other year. He denied man-made climate change existed because, he said, 35,000 “serious” Brazilian scientists had disproved it.

Menezes said Bolsonaro was popular in the region because he was against environmental officials and regulations preventing people working. “They have to eat, they have to produce food. So they work illegally,” he said. “Nobody wants to be illegal as well. They want to work legally.” Fires were lit to clear land for pasture that is then turned into agricultural land, he explained. “You get an area of dense forest and deforest it,” he said. “You need to burn this wood.”

Environmentalists describe a similar deforestation process. First, landgrabbers and loggers remove the most valuable trees, leaving some cover to make it harder for satellites to spot the damage. The remaining trees are then felled, left to dry and burned – hence the fires. Later grass is sown, and cattle put on the deforested land to consolidate possession.

This is “the classic cycle we have seen in recent years”, said Greenpeace Brazil’s senior forest campaigner, Adriana Charoux. If the farmer feels confident enough about his ownership of the land, the next stage is soya, she added.

Soya production is growing in the Novo Progresso area, Menezes said, taking pride in the region’s improving productivity.

Macaws on a ranch just outside the Jamanxim Forest protected reserve. Photograph: João Laet/The Guardian

The firefighters saving the forest

It was striking to see how farming had eaten into the forest on both sides of the BR-163. Cows were everywhere. Wildlife survived as best it could. One morning a white monkey scuttled across a dirt road, followed by a gaggle of forest pigs. Black, blue and orange macaws squawked atop a charred tree trunk, their only perch in a field of cattle. An opportunistic anteater darted across the highway in a gap between the trucks.

All along the highway were signs of logging, including an enormous sawmill at Moraes Almeida and three clapped-out flatbed trucks parked up one morning without licence plates by a smaller sawmill at Vila Izol. Nearby were three swastikas daubed on a bar door. 

Logging was also evident in the Serra do Cachimbo Springs reserve – a 342,000 hectare “biological reserve” created in 2005, which is also run by ICMBio.

Driving down a dirt road in the reserve one morning we passed a man standing next to a motorbike as a lookout while chainsaws howled in the trees. It was a tense moment: environment officials warned that running into loggers in reserves, who are often armed, can be risky.

When a convoy of government firefighters in 4x4s hurtled past, we followed them into a 6,000-hectare farm registered on the CAR system in 2016 to André Ferri. Cattle grazed on pasture littered with old charred logs outside an empty farmhouse, surrounded by a curtain of forest.

“All of this was burned, and this is a sensitive area,” said one of the firefighters, speaking anonymously because Bolsonaro’s government has banned environment agency employees from talking to the media.

ICMBIO team inspects Nascente da Serra do Cachimbo biological reserve. Photograph: João Laet/The Guardian

A few miles from here, a thousand hectares of Ferri’s farm was embargoed by ICMBio officials in April 2015 after being destroyed illegally and he was fined £3m. Four months later officials revisited the area and found the area had been burned and the area of devastation increased by more than 400 hectares. A satellite image from 2005, when the reserve was created, found no deforestation in the embargoed areas. In 2017, Nasa satellites found fires around the same area. The farm’s limits have since been modified on the CAR system to exclude the embargoed area.

Ferri has accumulated millions of pounds in fines, some of which were handed out after he broke previous embargoes and none of which has been paid. The neighbouring farm is owned by a transport company run by his brother Edner in Paraná state where André Ferri is also believed to live. Reached by phone on a Paraná number, he refused to answer questions. Brazil’s justice system has been unable to locate him to formally notify him of any of his fines.

The firefighters headed deeper into the reserve to check an area that had been flagged for deforestation by satellites. Near a patch of houses there were freshly felled trees but no flames – yet. They raced off again, passing a charred clump of felled forest, over a rocky ridge and through more cattle farms before parking near a clearing pockmarked with blackened logs and trunks.

Officials first came here last August following a deforestation alert and found a wooden house under construction, which they destroyed. Days later, the area was set on fire. The flames spread for miles and firefighters took days to bring the blaze under control. “This is an enormous loss for the environment,” one firefighter said. “It will take hundreds of years to recover.”

As the fires raged, a woman calling herself Nair Brizola drove up to Brazilian reporters and told them that ICMBio officials had started it. 

Cattle grazing on a ranch inside the Nascente da Serra do Cachimbo biological reserve registered to André Ferri. Photograph: João Laet/The Guardian

Her story was widely circulated by Bolsonaro supporters and the president ordered an investigation. In 2015, nearly 2,000 hectares of land including the scorched clearing where we stood was registered on the CAR system under the name Nair Rodrigues Petry. They are the same person. As Nair Brizola, Petry stood for the council of a town 150km away and had offered a similar plot of land for sale on Facebook for around £500,000.

Brizola/Petry has since been fined £221,000 for destroying 71 hectares of forest using fire. In a telephone interview on the same mobile phone number that appeared on the Facebook land sale advert, Petry said she had documents proving the land had been hers since 2001. “When they came and created this reserve, we were already there,” she said. “Nobody is a crook.” She repeated her accusation that ICMBio officials had started the fire, denied offering the land for sale – and has not paid the fine.

Petry said she was only just beginning to “mess” with the land. “In the future, the only thing we could do is pasture,” she said, meaning more cattle. “If I leave there, and leave it all abandoned, someone else will go in.”

How ‘cattle laundering’ fuels the fires

Brazilian meat companies have complex systems in place to prevent them buying from Amazon farmers facing fines and embargoes, like André Ferri. But farmers can avoid those checks by selling cattle to other farms for fattening, who then sell on to slaughterhouses – a triangulation process some environmentalists have dubbed “cattle laundering”. Pressure is growing on meat companies that are largely unable to monitor all their “indirect suppliers”. In the case of one company, Marfrig, “indirect suppliers” provide more than half of its cattle supplied from the Amazon.

BR-163 Road, which connects the cities of Cuiaba (Mato Grosso) and Santarém (Pará) and carries soybeans and corn for export from Brazil. Photograph: João Laet/The Guardian

Research by Holly Gibbs, a professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin who monitors Amazon cattle supply chains, has found that from 2017–2019 there were at least a hundred properties in the Jamanxim forest raising cattle – 68 of them indirect suppliers. 

Gibbs’s team found another 27 properties in Serra do Cachimbo involved in cattle production from 2017–2019, including 25 that were indirect suppliers.

We had our answers: the farms we had managed to reach had illustrated the whole process. Fires – three times more common in Amazon cattle farming areas – are used to clear forest for pasture. Fragile law enforcement means fines are ignored. And when the loopholes that allow farmers to sell cattle raised on illegally burned or deforested land are taken into account, the future for Novo Progresso’s forests is not bright. Instead, it is black with smoke.

It was dark when the firefighters’ convoy left, bouncing back down dirt tracks. A huge fire lit up the night sky: Petry’s neighbours burning more trees, the firefighters said. It was dark, and there was nothing they could do. We know why Amazon forests like this burn, but given Brazil’s current political situation, there are no solutions in view.

(Source: The Guardian)

Australia fires: Yearly greenhouse gas emissions nearly double due to historic blazes

The Met Office says that the Australian fires could account for 1 to 2 percent of the acceleration in the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide in 2020

The Australia bushfires, which are still burning and claimed an additional three lives this week, have released enough greenhouse gases to double the country's annual greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, new scientific estimates show.

Guido van der Werf, who helps maintain the Global Fire Emissions Database, says the fires in New South Wales and Victoria in particular have emitted around 400 million tons of carbon dioxide so far, “pushing country-level estimates for all of 2019 to a new record in the satellite era” of about 900 million tons of carbon dioxide.

A worker tries to put out a bushfire behind a row of factories near West Queanbeyan (Reuters)

The smoke plumes from the fires have circled the globe, and have coated glaciers brown in New Zealand, led to reddish sunsets in South America, and may have reached Antarctica.

According to the Global Carbon Project, in 2018, Australia emitted 421 million tons of carbon dioxide, making it the 16th-largest emitter worldwide, ranking just above the UK. Typically, fire-related emissions are not included in annual estimates of a country's emissions, since such pollutants tend to be reabsorbed over time.

In a typical fire year in Australia, large amounts of grasslands burn in sparsely populated areas. The carbon emitted by these fires tends to be reabsorbed during the following wet season.

However, this year, vast forest ecosystems that serve as long-term carbon savings accounts, having taken in carbon and stored it in biomass, went up in flames, such as in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. This carbon was released into the atmosphere during the fires, and it could take decades for the forests to recover to the point where they are net absorbers of such quantities of carbon dioxide once again.

In fact, full recovery may never happen, particularly if more fires burn in these forests in rapid succession, Mr van der Werf noted.

In another indication of the climate change implications of the bush fires, the UK Met Office said on Friday that the Australian fires could account for 1 to 2 percent of the acceleration in the growth of the global concentration of carbon dioxide in the planet's atmosphere in 2020.

Mr Van der Werf cautioned that the Australia fire emissions estimate comes with “substantial” uncertainties traced mainly to the unprecedented nature of these fires.

Niels Andela, a research scientist at NASA who also works on the fire emissions database, says two independent examinations of greenhouse gas emissions from the 2019-2020 bush fires both reached relatively similar conclusions, bolstering his confidence in the numbers.

In an interview, Mr Andela said the emissions estimates are generated using instruments carried by different satellites that detect the heat signatures of wildfires. The emissions database utilises historical data to locate hot spots as well as the energy released by wildfires, both of which spiked to unprecedented heights in southeastern Australia in recent months.

The historical data and observations is fed into a computer model to determine the likely emissions.

However, more accurate measurements will require information about the ecosystems burnt as well as the precise burnt area, which takes time to generate.

Mr Andela said the uncertainty involved in near-real-time estimates could be as high as 50% due to questions about historic estimates of fire emissions. In the case of the Australia bush fires, he says, the uncertainty is high because no one has ever seen fires burn like this in these ecosystems under such historically hot and dry conditions.

This could throw off assumptions in the model about how much of the forests burned.

Last year was the hottest and driest year on record in Australia, and December saw the country shatter its record for the hottest-ever day nationally.

With climate extremes becoming more severe and common worldwide as the global temperatures increase, real-time wildfire emissions estimates are likely to take on added importance. In 2019, for example, there was a spate of fires throughout the boreal forest in the Arctic, and 2018 was the most damaging and deadly fire year in California's history.

Mr Andela says the carbon cycle implications of the Australian forest loss are hugely important, since it will take decades for these forests to become efficient absorbers of greenhouse gases again. And that will only happen if more bush fires do not disturb these regions during their recovery period and logging does not expand.

In Australia, a debate is taking place over whether to thin out forests to make them less fire-prone, although scientific evidence shows the biggest drivers of fire risk is heat and drought, not forest density. Climate change heightens both of these risk factors.

Rob Jackson, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford University, said it's possible that by the time the bushfires are finally extinguished, the emissions from this fire season will be close to a billion tons of carbon dioxide. This would be below the fires that burned in Indonesian peatlands in 1997-1998, but roughly on par with the peat fires there of 2015-2016.

Jackson said even a half billion tons of carbon emissions is important, since, “It's the extra [carbon] that keeps adding up in the atmosphere.”

“If fire emissions increase in Australia and Western North America, they will make our job harder,” Jackson said, referring to efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. “More importantly,” he said, “They'll change lives. We'll have to rethink firefighting, controlled burns, where we live, that's happening in California too.”

“Is this a transformation of Australia's ecosystems?” he said.

Noting that many national parks saw the most severe fires, Jackson said such fires have been “devastating” from a carbon storage perspective as well as species conservation.

“They're having catastrophic fires in the parks. And the parks have in many places the biggest biomass, the richest systems,” he said. “It's more than just acreage. It's what acres are being burned.”

(Source: Independent)

Australia wildfires: Blazes merge into massive inferno as experts warn species will go extinct

Top scientists call for PM to do more on climate crisis as UK expert predicts animal victims will be in the trillions

Two wildfires have merged to form a massive inferno in south-eastern Australia, as experts warned some species are likely already to be extinct.

The “megafire” engulfing nearly 1.5 million acres in New South Wales and Victoria was created when lightning strikes and flames fanned by strong winds sparked new blazes.

It is just one of 135 bush fires that have killed at least 28 people and an estimated one billion animals, and damaged or destroyed nearly 3,000 homes since September.

Firefighters tackled the inferno as a leaked report on the emergency to the government of Victoria this week warned that some species are likely to already be extinct.

And a British scientist predicted the tally of animals killed could be in the trillions – far larger even than the half or one billion estimated.

Prof Ben Garrod, an evolutionary biologist at the University of East Anglia, said: “With habitat loss, reduced food availability and possible increased predation, the full effects of these fires will not be felt for months or years to come, but will certainly cause the extinction for some of Australia’s most iconic, fragile and beautiful inhabitants.”

He said there is debate about whether half a billion or a billion animals have been affected, but “by the time we include invertebrates as well as mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds, the total will conceivably be in the trillions”.

Australia was home to about 80 per cent of mammals found nowhere else on Earth, and the full effect of the fires may not be felt for months or years to come, he said.

“If we are seeing this level of death, destruction and loss now, what will our planet look like when global temperatures rise by another two or three degrees Celsius? We need to act as an international community and if not now, when?”

At the same time, Australia’s most prestigious scientific organisation has called on Scott Morrison, the country’s prime minister, to do more to tackle the human-induced climate crisis.

(Source: Independent)

Incredible infrared pictures taken from space show Australia burning as plumes of thick smoke are sent soaring into the atmosphere

Infrared pictures taken from space show thick plumes of toxic smoke billowing from the catastrophic bushfires in Australia.

Satellite images taken on Saturday showed wildfires burning around East Gippsland and Kosciuszko National Park.

The eerie photos showed the scale of the blazes, after high winds and 46C heat on Saturday increased the ferocity of the fires. 

Officials confirmed more than 1,500 homes had been destroyed - 1,365 in NSW alone - with more than 300 fires still ravaging the parched land across the country.

Late on Saturday, thousands of residents in fire-ravaged Victoria were given evacuation orders as out-of-control blazes threatened several towns.

Up to 24 communities were isolated on Saturday night as the Princes Highway closed between Orbost in southern Victoria and the NSW border, the Herald Sun reported. 

Cann River was evacuated via an old road to Orbost as an out-of-control fire threatened lives and homes.

A bus and 40 cars convoyed out of the town at 3pm.

Residents in Freeburgh, Harrietville, Smoko and Wandiligong were also told their homes and lives are in danger as fires spread due to the high winds. 

Of around 100,000 residents in East Gippsland, 70 per cent have fled.

Residents over in NSW were begged to limit their energy use, with people asked to not turn on dishwashers or washing machines.

It came as key lines in the Snowy Mountains were ravaged by fires, causing around 15,000 to lose power.

Fires continued to spread in the state overnight, with residents of Kangaroo Valley, a lush green area west of the popular tourist town of Berry, being told it's too late to leave.

As of early Sunday morning, there were 150 bushfires in NSW - seven at emergency level - and 50 fires burning in Victoria - 13 of which are at emergency level. 

Evacuations are underway and emergency alerts are in place in NSW, Victoria and South Australia as authorities predict the devastating bushfires will continue burning until at least March. 

At least 23 people have been killed in blazes across the country since the bushfire season began in October, there are six people still missing in fire-affected regions

NEW SOUTH WALES/ACT

• Two people are unaccounted - one near Bodalla on the South Coast and the other person from Bombala near the Victorian border
• At least 150 bushfires were burning in NSW on Sunday
• 18 people dead 
• 3.6 million hectares burned, greater than the size of Belgium 
• At least 1,365 homes confirmed destroyed 

VICTORIA  

• Two people dead, four missing
• About 50 bushfires burning
• More than 784,000 hectares burned
• 330 structures confirmed destroyed but significantly more expected 

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

• Three people, including two from Kangaroo Island, are dead
• 17 bushfires burning, four of significance
• More than 100,000 hectares burned
• 88 homes confirmed destroyed  
• About 600 properties on Kangaroo Island remain without power with SA Power Networks warning it may be some time before crews can access the fire ground to assess damage 

QUEENSLAND

• 33 bushfires burning
• 250,000 hectares burned
• 45 homes confirmed destroyed

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

• More than 35 bushfires burning, two of significance
• 1.5 million hectares burned
• One home confirmed destroyed

TASMANIA

• 23 bushfires burning, two of significance
• 30,000 hectares burned
• Two homes confirmed destroyed

NORTHERN TERRITORY

• Five bushfires burning
• Five homes confirmed destroyed

(Source: Daily Mail)

Australia bushfires: Fundraiser reaches A$20m in 48 hours

A fundraiser for fire services in New South Wales, Australia has raised more than A$20 million (£10.6m; $13m) in just 48 hours, as the state battles a bushfire crisis.

Australian comedian Celeste Barber launched the Facebook appeal on Friday, writing: "Please help any way you can. This is terrifying."

At least 24 people have died since the fires began in September.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called up 3,000 reserve troops to help.

In Canberra, the air quality has been ranked as the worst in the world, and residents have been told to avoid leaving their homes.

In some areas, helicopters have been brought in to help evacuate people

Australian airline Qantas has cancelled flights to and from the city for the remainder of Sunday.

An 'incredible' response

Comedian Ms Barber has family who were evacuated from the town of Eden in New South Wales, where officials told residents to leave immediately and head north if they did not have a bushfire response plan.

She called the rush of donations "incredible", and said the proceeds would go to NSW Rural Fire Service - a government-funded agency staffed by volunteers - and the Brigades Donations Fund, which channels charitable donations directly to fire brigades.

A number of celebrities have also donated money to support the fire-fighting effort in recent days - among them US singer Pink, and Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman, who pledged $500,000.

News of the donations was praised by Australians on social media, but some lamented that private citizens were raising funds they said should have been put in place by the government.

Almost 200 fires are still burning across the country. Although much attention has centred on worst-hit NSW, every state and territory has been affected. More than 1,200 homes have been destroyed and millions of hectares of land scorched.

Tens of thousands of homes in NSW and Victoria states are currently without power. Thousands of people have been evacuated from coastal towns over the past week.

The NSW town of Cooma suffered a further blow on Saturday night when a large tower carrying millions of litres of water exploded, flooding homes and sweeping away vehicles.

NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro told ABC News the incident was a "massive disaster....on the back of a crisis and the threat of fires".

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who has cancelled a planned visit to India scheduled for 13 January due to the crisis, said on Sunday that he had established a National Bushfire Recovery Agency to co-ordinate recovery efforts.

The body will help bushfire-hit communities recover, media reports said, through work ranging from rebuilding infrastructure to providing mental health support.

Mr Morrison, who has faced stinging criticism for his handling of the fires, promised the organisation "will be stood up for at least two years".

But he could not escape further condemnation on Sunday, as the head of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service revealed he had only learned of the plan to call up reserve troops through the media.

Singapore and Papua New Guinea have offered military support to Australia, while New Zealand is sending an additional three Air Force helicopters.

Sunday is expected to be cooler across the country's south-east, with some rain predicted. Fire officials have warned that the next major risks will come next week.

(Source: BBC)

A firefighter was killed in the Australia bushfires. His son received a medal to honor his father's bravery

The 19-month-old son of a firefighter killed while battling Australia's bushfires received a posthumous medal to honor his father's bravery on Thursday.

Powerful images from the funeral of Geoffrey Keaton -- one of two firefighters killed while fighting bushfires on December 19 -- were posted by New South Wales Fire Service.

Harvey, Keaton's young son, was dressed in a firefighter outfit with a pacifier in his mouth as New South Wales (NSW) Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons pinned the medal to his chest.

His 32-year-old father had been awarded the posthumous Commendation for Bravery and Service after he and his colleague Andrew O'Dwyer died last month.

They were killed by a falling tree that hit their vehicle, causing it to overturn.

Geoffrey Keaton joined the fire service in 2006 and was a Deputy Captain of Horsley Park Rural Fire Brigade.

"Today the NSW RFS family farewelled one of their own, with the funeral of Geoffrey Keaton held in western Sydney earlier today," a NSW Rural Fire Service Facebook post read.

Photos posted on the fire service's Facebook page show hundreds attending the funeral, many donning yellow RFS uniforms and a guard of honor forming as Keaton's hearse arrived.

Another poignant photo shows a mug placed on his coffin, with the words: "Daddy I love you to the moon and back!," inscribed on it.

Many people commented on the posts, paying tribute to Keaton's "heroic efforts."

Parts of Australia have been devastated by bushfires for months, with the states of New South Wales and Victoria being hit particularly hard.

At least 17 people have died across the country so far and it is feared that the fires are not about to stop anytime soon.

On Thursday, NSW declared a state of emergency for the third time in as many months as emergency crews battle deadly blazes and prepare for a dangerous weekend ahead.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his wife, Jenny attended Keaton's service.

He tweeted: "This morning Jenny will join me as we remember and give thanks for the life and service of Geoff Keaton at his memorial with his partner Jess, his son Harvey and all his family and friends, especially those from the Horsley Park RFS Brigade."

Morrison has come under pressure for his handling of the bushfires -- and the climate crisis more generally.

Morrison faced tough questions on Thursday from those living in the middle of the bushfire danger zone.

One woman said she would only shake his hand in order to get more money for the Rural Fire Service while another group yelled out "you're an idiot" and "piss off" as he walked away from them while on a stop in the town of Cobargo.

Morrison said his government aimed to "meet and beat our emissions reduction targets" -- but added that it would stick to "sensible" policies that "don't move toward either extreme."

The NSW Rural Fire service has set up dedicated bank accounts to collect donations for the families of volunteer firefighters who have been killed while on duty this fire season.

(Source: CNN)