The Burning Bush

摘要

A week after bushfires started blazing across parts of southern Australia, the country was still coming to grips with one of the most traumatic events in its peacetime history. The fires that erupted on February 7th in Victoria, the second-most populous state, killed more than 180 people. Police say the toll could reach 300. The final count will be left to authorities with the grim task of sifting through landscapes blackened by flames so ferocious that they melted car parts and devoured buildings in seconds.rnIn one of Australia's hottest summer seasons on record, about 50 fires also raged across New South Wales, the most populous state, without loss of life. But it was neighbouring Victoria that bore the most devastating brunt. The state is prone to hot winds driving in from deserts, fanning flames whose "scale and savagery", says Stephen Pyne, an American fire expert, "have no equal elsewhere on earth."rnThis week's fires easily outstripped the worst two previous ones: "Black Friday" in January 1939, when 71 people died in Victoria; and "Ash Wednesday" in February 1983, which took 75 lives in Victoria and neighbouring South Australia. This time, a prolonged drought gripping south-east Australia, and temperatures staying above 40℃ for days, made for a lethally dry terrain to fuel the flames.