CANBERRA, Australia (AP) Australia's most populous state declared a state of emergency on Monday due to unprecedented wildfire danger as calls grew for Australia to take more action to counter climate change.
New South Wales State Emergency Services Minister David Elliott said residents were facing what "could be the most dangerous bushfire week this nation has ever seen."
Fires in the state's northeast have claimed three lives, destroyed more than 150 homes and razed more than 850,000 hectares (3,300 square miles) of forest and farmland since Friday.
Fire conditions are forecast to be worse on Tuesday than they were at the peak of the current fire emergency on Friday.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the last time a state of emergency was declared in New South Wales was 2013 when there were extensive fires in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.
"The catastrophic weather conditions mean that things can change very quickly," she told reporters in Sydney.
Catastrophic fire danger has been declared for Sydney and the Hunter Valley region to the north on Tuesday with severe and extreme danger across vast tracts of the rest of the state.
The week-long declaration of a state of emergency gives the Rural Fire Service sweeping powers.
The annual Australian fire season, which peaks during the Southern Hemisphere summer, has started early after an unusually warm and dry winter. The crisis has reignited the debate on whether Australia has taken enough action on climate change.
Australia is the world's largest exporter of coal and liquid natural gas. It is also the world's driest continent after the Antarctic, which scientists say leaves Australians particularly vulnerable to weather extremes associated with a changing climate.
Photo: (Darren Pateman/AAP Image via AP)
