![The Australian bushfires, right, are far greater in size than the 2019 Amazon Rainforest fires, top left, and the 2018 Californian wildfires, bottom left, combined. [Photo: AAP]](https://www.fijivillage.com/news_images/14888629065e111ff0b00e415f4c53.jpg)
The sheer scale of the Australian bushfire crisis is hard to comprehend.
In the five months since the bushfire season began in August, millions of hectares and thousands of homes have burned.
Australian bushfires burn more land than Amazon and California fires combined https://t.co/9EfBY1fUen
— Fijivillage (@fijivillage) January 4, 2020
New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory have seen a combined 3.6 million hectares of land lost to the fire.
Nationally, more than 6.3 million hectares of land have been affected by the fires, as of Saturday in Australia.
That would be almost half of the entirety of the country of England.
Strong winds that have changed direction are hampering efforts by firefighters to contain bushfires in Australia's south-east.
A southerly change with powerful gusts up to 128km/h threatened to spread huge fires raging in New South Wales.
In the neighbouring state of Victoria, army helicopters have been deployed to evacuate people trapped by the flames.
Since September, fires in Australia have killed at least 23 people.
More than 1,200 homes have been destroyed and millions of hectares of land scorched.
[Source: BBC / 9 News]
