Australia’s Wildfires Are So Hot, They’re Generating Thunder and Lightning - Wall Street Journal

Residents look on as flames burn through bush on Saturday in Lake Tabourie in New... — Residents look on as flames burn through bush on Saturday in Lake Tabourie in New South Wales, Australia. Photo: Brett Hemmings/Getty Images

David Winning and

David Winning

The Wall Street Journal

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@dwinningWSJ
david.winning@wsj.com

James Glynn

Jan. 5, 2020 4:00 am ET

SYDNEY—Wildfires ravaging much of southeastern Australia burned so hot that they created their own thunderstorms and lightning—similar to conditions during a volcanic eruption or atomic bomb blast.

Firefighter Michael Brearley was leading the defense of Wingello, a small town around 100 miles south of Sydney when a huge cloud began to form in the distance on Saturday. He knew it was bad news: The area had barely seen a drop of rain for weeks.

Instead it was fire that rained down from the formation of pyrocumulonimbus clouds—created by intense heat driving air rapidly upward in the smoke plume from a wildfire, drawing in moisture and resulting in thunderstorms. Scientists say they are only beginning to understand the weather phenomenon, making its behavior hard to predict.

“When the southerly wind change hit, the cloud collapsed and it just threw fire into the forest immediately south of the town,” Mr. Brearley said. “We screamed for more resources. The fire was on us.”

Around 150 fires continued to burn across New South Wales state on Sunday, with 39 more in neighboring Victoria, after conditions turned catastrophic a day earlier when temperatures surged past 100 degrees Fahrenheit and blazes were fanned by strong, unpredictable winds. Wildfires have blackened more than 20,000 square miles so far.

The death toll from fires in New South Wales climbed to nine over the past week, after a 47-year-old man was killed on Saturday while trying to help defend a friend’s rural property in the apple-growing town of Batlow. Officials in Victoria say two people have died and seven people are unaccounted for since fires escalated ahead of New Year’s Eve. In South Australia state, two people died in fires that consumed a quarter of Kangaroo Island, a popular tourist spot.

Fires brought down electricity transmission lines, including in the area around Kosciuszko National Park in New South Wales, triggering blackouts affecting 35,000 people. Households were asked to ease the strain on the power network by turning off washing machines, dishwashers and pool pumps. Authorities say the defense of power infrastructure and communications towers, along with towns and large factories such as sawmills, is a priority during Australia’s worst wildfire season in years.

Dramatic footage shows firefighters driving through blazes in Australia. As emergency services tackle the country’s wildfires, vulnerabilities in the global firefighting network have emerged. Photo: State of Victoria/AFP via Getty Images

Fire-generated weather is making that job harder. Pyrocumulonimbus clouds produce intense updrafts that suck in so much air that strong winds develop, which can cause a fire to burn hotter and spread, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said on its website. The clouds can make nearby fires shift direction, and throw off embers that land several miles away from the main front, starting new blazes.

Lightning can form in the clouds, adding to dangers. During Australia’s worst bush fire disaster measured by lives lost—the 2009 Black Saturday fires in Victoria that killed 173 people—lightning from pyrocumulonimbus clouds began a new blaze some 62 miles from the fire front.

Glen Squire, captain of the fire brigade in Adaminaby, a small New South Wales town, ordered his crew into their truck when the massive blaze they were fighting on the eastern flank of Kosciuszko National Park generated its own thunderstorm. For up to four hours, the area was hit by rain, erratic wind gusts, and lightning strikes, he said.

“It was 3 p.m. and it was darker than what you would experience at 2 a.m.,” Mr. Squire said.

A firefighting crew battles a fire near Burrill Lake in New South Wales on Sunday. Photo: Rick Rycroft/Associated Press

Emergency personnel had to be withdrawn from some fire zones when dangerous weather created by smoke clouds developed, said Shane Fitzsimmons, Rural Fire Service commissioner for New South Wales.

On New Year’s Eve, cyclonic-type winds whipped up at the base of a blaze in Jingellic in New South Wales overturned a 10-ton firetruck and another vehicle. Sam McPaul, a volunteer firefighter who was due to become a father this year, died in the accident and three colleagues were injured, one severely.

“That’s the sort of volatility and the danger that exists with the sorts of pyroconvective columns that can be generated by these fires,” Mr. Fitzsimmons said.

Australia will deploy 3,000 defense-force reservists and lease more waterbombing planes, the first time the country has made a compulsory call to backup troops in response to a wildfire disaster, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said. The Australian navy’s largest amphibious ship, the HMAS Adelaide, is being mobilized to support the evacuation of fire-affected areas along the southeastern coast.

Mr. Morrison last month cut short a holiday in Hawaii, after being criticized for vacationing during the crisis. This week, visiting the fire-ravaged town of Cobargo in New South Wales—near where two men died in a blaze Monday—he was heckled by residents, some angry over what they saw as inadequate support for local firefighters. Some refused to shake his hand.

Mr. Morrison said he had postponed official visits to India and Japan to oversee the recovery effort. “We will do whatever it takes to get Australians through these terrible times,” he said.

A burned-out outbuilding on Michael Brearley’s property in Wingello. Photo: Michael Brearley

Relief efforts continued, with more than 1,150 evacuees from the fire-ravaged town of Mallacoota taken by navy ships to Westernport on Victoria’s south coast. Defense bases from Brisbane to Adelaide are being opened as temporary shelters for evacuees.

Fire conditions in the region are expected to ease over the coming days as temperatures drop and winds lighten, although several blazes remain out of control.

Mr. Brearley, the Wingello fire brigade president, counts himself as lucky. Returning to the town in the early hours of Sunday, he found his home had survived the fire although a nearby outbuilding had been torched.

“The burning of vegetation just stopped about a meter short of the house,” he said. “It’s incredible.”