Brushfires in Australia

This event is catastrophic in size and impact.  We are posting to share our update and to ask the community if anyone else has any information, reports or updates.    Humanity Road has been actively monitoring brushfires in Australia and were activated to support a local effort in Adelaide. Due to record breaking temperatures and severe drought Australia has been battling brushfires since September. About 6 million sq km or 14.8 million acres have burned. The entire country is impacted, and New South Wales has been affected the worst with over 1,300 houses destroyed. A Natural Disaster Declaration has been issued for the following locations:
-Campbelltown
-Canterbury Bankstown
-Hawkesbury City
-Hornsby Shire
-Ku-ring-gai
-Lane Cove
-Liverpool City
-Northern Beaches
-Sutherland Shire
-Willoughby.

There are 4 States of Disaster Recovery funding in place for Queensland (ended in December), New South Wales, Tasmania, and Victoria. http://bit.ly/2trVbIa
There are evacuation centers open in 8 different cities https://www.emergency.nsw.gov.au/Pages/for-the-community/disaster-assistance/disaster-assistance.aspx.
More than 130 fires are still burning across the state on Friday, in the bush, mountain forests and national parks, with about 60 still not contained by firefighters and posing a risk to lives. Around 1,000 tourists and residents were eventually evacuated by the Australian navy and taken further down the coast. The military has sent troops, ships and aircraft to the region to help relocation and firefighting efforts. A total of 18 deaths have been reported from this event. We will continue to monitor for urgent needs, evacuations, amplify officials, and resources that may be available.  Below are a few relevant social media links

National Links

• Police/Fire/Ambulance: 000
• SES assistance in floods and storms: 132 500
• Police attendance: 131 444 (all states except Victoria)
• International incident emergency helpline: 1300 555 135 (within Australia)
• Outside Australia- external site: +61 2 6261 3305

New South Wales

• Website https://www.nsw.gov.au/
  
• Evacuation Centers Open https://www.emergency.nsw.gov.au/Pages/for-the-community/disaster-assistance/disaster-assistance.aspx
• Animals in Disaster Special App https://www.ifaw.org/au/resources/wildlife-rescue-app 
  A joint initiative by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, (IFAW)and the NSW Wildlife Council (NWC), this mobile site will give you some information on who to call and what to do if you find an injured animal in NSW - whether you are out driving or walking, or at your home - until a trained helper can take over. This is for NSW only and will soon expand to other states.

Road Closures and power outages

Motorists have been advised to generally avoid travel to the south coast and Snowy Mountains-Riverina areas, which have experienced widespread power outages and major road closures. https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/major-roads-closed-as-thousands-flee-nsw-and-victoria/news-story/5884afe32359429af35f80b3498f7b6c 

Please let us know if we can support, amplify or assist in this event.  Thanks and stay safe.

Cat Graham
Chief Operations Officer
Humanity Road
http://humanityroad.org